An illegal immigrant who was convicted of murder in Florida and later deported back to El Salvador is back in custody after being nabbed by federal agents on Long Island, the feds said Monday.
Jose Dimas Guerra Castro, 53, was sentenced to 18 years in prison on a 2003 murder in Hialeah, Florida, and deported after authorities in the Sunshine State turned him over to federal immigration agents in 2019 — but somehow made his way back across the US border, Immigration and Customs Enforcement said.
But ICE and US Custom and Border Patrol agents tracked him down to Hempstead on Jan. 29, and slapped the cuffs back on him for re-entering the county illegally, the feds said.
“When ICE says we’re arresting the worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens, this is exactly who we mean,” said Kenneth Genalo, director of the New York City Enforcement and Removal Operations field office.
“While politicians continue to prioritize criminal illegal aliens over law-abiding New Yorkers, our officers are on the front lines every day keeping our communities safe from murderers, drug traffickers, child sex abusers and gang members,” Genalo said. “I commend their exceptional work.”
Guerra Castro was busted by the Hialeah Police Department in Miami-Dade County in 2003 and charged with second-degree murder with a deadly weapon, the feds said.
Details of that case were not immediately available, but ICE officials said Monday that he was sentenced to 18 years in prison in 2017 — although it’s unclear why the sentencing took so long.
On July 1, 2019, federal agents in Miami tracked Guerra Castro down while he was still behind bars, and placed a hold on him to bar Florida correction officials from releasing him after he finished his sentenced.
ICE agents took him into custody when he was released and he was deported on July 26, 2019, according to the feds.
But the killer somehow snuck back into the US and made his way to the New York metropolitan area, where he was hunted down and taken into custody last month, the feds said.
He is scheduled to be formally charged with illegal re-entry as an aggravated felon in federal court in the Eastern District of New York, ICE officials said.
ICE currently has detainers lodged against more than 7,000 illegal immigrants in New York, including suspects in murder and sex crimes, the agency said.
New York’s migrant-friendly sanctuary city status, which greatly limits cooperation with federal law enforcement on immigration matters, has irked the Trump administration.
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