ERO Boston arrests unlawfully present Salvadoran citizen facing indecent assault, statutory rape charges
BOSTON — Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) Boston arrested an unlawfully present citizen of El Salvador in New Bedford on June 29. The Salvadoran citizen, who was charged locally with indecent assault and battery of a minor and statutory rape, was arrested without incident on immigration violations.
The 65-year-old native of the Cuscatlan province of El Salvador unlawfully entered the United States at an unknown location in 2010 and did not seek legal status in the country. The Bristol Superior Court in New Bedford released the accused foreign national on pretrial conditions following his arraignment on charges of statutory rape and indecent assault and battery on a child under 14 in August 2021. ERO Boston will seek his removal pending the outcome of the local criminal charges he faces.
“ERO Boston takes our mission to protect the public safety very seriously,” said ERO Boston Field Office Director Todd Lyons. “This includes cases when unlawfully present foreign nationals who pose a threat to the safety of communities are charged with serious felonies but are released by local courts to the streets. ERO Boston can and will apprehend these threats to public safety and carry out the mission we are charged with.”
Noncitizens placed into removal proceedings receive their legal due process from federal immigration judges in the immigration courts, which are administered by the Justice Department’s Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR). EOIR is an agency within the U.S. Department of Justice and is separate from the Department of Homeland Security 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. Once a noncitizen is subject to a final order of removal issued by an immigration judge or other lawful means, ICE officers may carry out the removal.
ERO officers make enforcement decisions on a case-by-case basis in a professional and responsible manner, informed by their experience as law enforcement officials and in a way that best protects against the greatest threats to the homeland and the integrity of U.S. immigration laws.
In fiscal year 2022, ERO arrested 46,396 noncitizens with criminal histories. This group had 198,498 associated charges and convictions, including 21,531 assault offenses; 8,164 sex and sexual assault offenses; 5,554 weapons offenses; 1,501 homicide-related offenses; and 1,114 kidnapping offenses.
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.
For more news and information on how the ERO Boston field office carries out its immigration enforcement mission, follow us on Twitter @EROBoston.
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