Illegal immigrant convicted of rape is arrested again by ICE agents after judge sentences him to just 190 days in jail

A Guatemalan immigrant convicted last month of raping a Maryland resident was arrested yesterday by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers.

The arrest of Guatemalan Henry Argueta-Tobar, 19, came after he was sentenced on July 3 to 20 years in prison for second-degree rape.

However, the court then suspended all but 190 days of the prison sentence.

Commenting on yesterday’s arrestVernon Liggins, acting deputy field officer for enforcement and removal operations in Baltimore, said Argueta-Tobar “had come to Maryland and victimized one of our residents” and therefore “we could not allow him to continue to threaten our communities.”

‘ERO Baltimore will continue to prioritize public safety by relentlessly pursuing unlawfully present sexual predators and heinous noncitizen criminals.’

According to an ICE press release, in December 2023, the young man was arrested by the Charles County Sheriff’s Office and charged with second-degree rape.

ERO then issued an immigration detainer against him at the Charles County Detention Center in La Plata.

According to ICE, an immigration detainer is a request to state or local law enforcement agencies to detain a person who is about to be released, so that ERO can “assume custody for removal purposes in accordance with federal law.”

However, this request was not honored by the Charles Country Detention Center, which meant that Argueta-Tobar was released.

According to an ICE press release, the 19-year-old was first detained in May 2019 after illegally entering the United States near El Paso, Texas, as an accompanied minor.

The U.S. Border Patrol transferred custody of Argueta-Tobar to ERO El Paso, who released him on a recognizance order.

In February, a Justice Department immigration judge in Baltimore ordered the man deported to Guatemala ahead of his July conviction for rape.

Argueta-Tobar remains in custody following his arrest yesterday.

This comes after a shocking new report revealed on Tuesday that the Biden administration allowed thousands of immigrants who entered the United States illegally with their families to stay and were placed in a deportation program.

According to the report, Biden has allowed 90 percent of immigrants included in the Family Expedited Removal Management (FERM) program to remain in the United States rather than being deported.

According to a report by the New York Post, out of a total of 24,000 immigrants enrolled in the program, only 2,600 have been deported, leaving more than 21,000 who were allowed to stay in the United States.

And since FERM began in May 2023, more than 840,000 migrants traveling in family units have been apprehended by authorities at the border, according to ICE data reviewed by the House Homeland Security Committee.

This means that only a fraction of illegal immigrants who came to the US with their families were removed through the FERM program.

It was not immediately clear why every family unit was not immediately included in FERM’s deportation proceedings.

The flawed program is now attracting the attention of top lawmakers in Congress, who are demanding action.

“The same White House that is allowing millions of illegal immigrants to enter our country is also refusing to deport them,” House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican, posted on X in response to the explosive report.

“The Biden-Harris administration has no intention of enforcing our laws. No amount of maneuvering can hide that.”