(The Center Square) – In the past six months, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers have arrested more criminal illegal foreign nationals in the Houston area who were convicted or charged with child sex offenses than they did in all of 2024.
ICE officers, working with multiple federal partners, have arrested 214 illegal foreign nationals in the Houston area who were either charged with, or convicted of, child sex offenses.
The total number of people arrested in the last six months were greater than the number ICE Houston field office agents arrested during the entire 2024 fiscal year of 211 who were also charged with or convicted of child sex offenses.
“The surge in arrests of illegal aliens charged with or convicted of child sex offenses is a direct result of a whole-of-government approach implemented under the current administration that led to the establishment of multiagency targeting teams in each area of responsibility,” ICE said.
“Bringing together the resources and expertise of the entire federal law enforcement community to confront the overwhelming surge of illegal immigration that we saw over the past four years has resulted in the arrest and removal of historic numbers of violent criminal aliens, transnational gang members and child sex offenders,” ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations Houston acting Field Office Director Paul McBride said. “While we still have a long way to go to truly get this crisis under control, the strides we have made in just six months to make our local communities safer are substantial, and our officers continue to work tirelessly every day to get the worst of the worst criminal aliens out of Southeast Texas to return our communities to places we can all enjoy.”
ICE highlighted key arrests in this group of mostly Mexican nationals, all men in the U.S. illegally, who were previously deported. They were also deported this time.
They include 67-year-old Mexican national Jesus Gutierrez Mireles, who was previously deported three times. His criminal history includes convictions for aggravated sexual assault of a child and driving while intoxicated.
Another is 48-year-old Mexican national Jorge Zebra, convicted of two counts of aggravated sexual assault of a minor and sexual indecency with a minor. Another is 40-year-old Mexican national Jose Guadalupe Meza, who was previously deported four times. His convictions include theft and sexual assault of a child. Another was 45-year-old Mexican national Sergio Rolando Galvan Guerrero, who was previously deported three times. His convictions include a DWI and aggravated sexual assault of a child.
They were deported before another group of 142 Mexican nationals in the country illegally were deported from the Houston area last month. Their 472 convictions included child sex crimes, human trafficking, human smuggling among other violent crimes, The Center Square reported.
In May, ICE ERO Houston agents removed more than 500 violent convicted criminals; in April they removed 174 to Mexico with 600 convictions, The Center Square reported.
In June, ICE officers arrested more than 1,326 in the Houston area, The Center Square reported. Among them were 32 convicted of child sex offenses, nine convicted of homicide-related offenses, 16 documented members of a transnational gang or drug cartel, and one convicted of hijacking an airplane, ICE said.
ICE officers are working with multiple federal law enforcement partners, including the FBI, ATF, DEA, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the Diplomatic Security Service and U.S. Marshals Service.
They are also working as part of a Homeland Security Task Forces led by ICE Homeland Security Investigations-Houston and FBI-Houston targeting all of southeast Texas, The Center Square reported.
Houston, the largest city closest to the U.S.-Mexico border, is considered a major trafficking hub and gateway for criminal activity into the rest of the U.S. It’s only a few hours’ drive from Brownsville, Eagle Pass, Laredo and other major crossing points used by cartels and transnational criminal organizations. From Houston, people, weapons and drugs are moved to other major hubs like Dallas, Chicago, Atlanta, Los Angeles, New York and Miami within a matter of hours and days, law enforcement officers have explained to The Center Square.
FBI Houston Special Agent in Charge Douglas Williams said the new task force was “a united front unseen before in Houston. For the first time, law enforcement and intelligence agencies are focused on hunting down and eradicating transnational criminals within Houston communities. Federal, state and local police will coordinate with the U.S. Intelligence Community and overseas partners to efficiently eliminate newly designated terrorists wreaking havoc in our neighborhoods.”
