ERO Baltimore arrests noncitizen convicted of sexual abuse of a Maryland minor
BALTIMORE — Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) Baltimore arrested a 48-year-old unlawfully present noncitizen convicted of sexual crimes against a Maryland minor. Deportation officers from ERO Baltimore’s Fugitive Operations Team apprehended the Colombian national Dec. 19 at his residence in Gaithersburg. He will remain in custody pending his removal from the United States.
“This unlawfully present Colombian national has exhausted all legal means to remain in the United States. However, he has proven to be a significant threat to the residents of our communities,” said ERO Baltimore Field Office Director Darius Reeves. “He sexually abused a minor, and as long as he remains on our streets, he represents a threat to the good people of Maryland. ERO Baltimore will continue to work to remove such threats from our neighborhoods.”
The noncitizen entered the United States in September 2005 in Miami, Florida, on a visa that allowed him to remain in the country until October 2006.
Maryland’s Montgomery County Police Department arrested him in August 2013 and charged him with sexual abuse of a minor.
The Circuit Court for Montgomery County in Rockville convicted the Colombian noncitizen of sexual abuse of a minor in November 2013 and sentenced him to 25 years of confinement followed by 5 years of supervised probation. The court suspended all but four years of his confinement.
The U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland revoked the Colombian national’s naturalization in January 2019 and ordered him to surrender his Certificate of Naturalization, all U.S. passports and any other documents indicating his U.S. citizenship.
ERO Baltimore arrested the Colombian national in December 2019 and issued him a notice to appear before a Department of Justice immigration judge based on his criminal conviction. The noncitizen appealed the immigration judge’s decision up to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit dismissed his appeal in May 2023.
ERO conducts removals of individuals without a lawful basis to remain in the United States, including at the order of immigration judges with the Justice Department’s Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR). EOIR is a separate entity from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Immigration judges in these courts make decisions based on the merits of each individual case, determining if a noncitizen is subject to a final order of removal or eligible for certain forms of relief from removal.
As one of ICE’s three operational directorates, ERO is the principal federal law enforcement authority in charge of domestic immigration enforcement. ERO’s mission is to protect the homeland through the arrest and removal of those who undermine the safety of U.S. communities and the integrity of U.S. immigration laws, and its primary areas of focus are interior enforcement operations, management of the agency’s detained and non-detained populations, and repatriation of noncitizens who have received final orders of removal. ERO’s workforce consists of more than 7,700 law enforcement and non-law enforcement support personnel across 25 domestic field offices and 208 locations nationwide, 30 overseas postings, and multiple temporary duty travel assignments along the border.
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