DHS Highlights ICE Arrests in North Carolina: Five Men With Records Including Sexual Exploitation of a Minor, Child Abuse and Armed Robbery
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on October 20 issued a statement highlighting five men with serious criminal records arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in North Carolina in recent weeks, two of them with multiple convictions for sexual exploitation of a minor. The statement did not give a total number of arrests in the state.
The five arrests took place between September 30 and October 13. Nelson Alexander Chay, a Guatemalan national and registered sex offender, was arrested on October 2 in Siler City; he has 16 convictions for second-degree sexual exploitation of a minor involving obscene material, plus a DWI conviction. DHS said Chay entered the United States legally through California in May 2002 and has now been placed in proceedings to terminate his lawful status. Gustavo Cardenas Arreola, a Mexican national arrested on October 5 in Graham, has 10 convictions for second-degree sexual exploitation of a minor; DHS issued him a final order of removal on October 19.
The other three are Isidro Flores Rodriguez, a Mexican national arrested October 13 in Oxford with a conviction for felony child abuse inflicting serious injury; Thong Vilaiphone, a Lao national arrested October 1 in China Grove, whose record includes possession of a weapon of mass destruction, contributing to the delinquency of a minor and a felony probation violation, and who has had a final removal order since 1997; and Francis Martinez Alvarez, a Honduran national arrested September 30 in New Hanover County with convictions for robbery with a dangerous weapon and illegal reentry. Alvarez, deported in June 2007 before reentering illegally, was removed again on October 16.
DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin said in the statement that ICE has in recent weeks arrested people in North Carolina convicted of sexual exploitation of a minor, felony child abuse, robbery with a dangerous weapon and driving while intoxicated. He said that even one American harmed is too many, that DHS will not stop arresting and deporting such individuals, and that deportations save lives. (GSM, based on the DHS statement)
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：移民执法局 ICE 执法与递解行动处人员执行逮捕行动（资料图，非北卡现场）。美国移民执法局 ICE 官方图，公共领域，经 Wikimedia Commons。Photo: ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations officers during an arrest operation (file photo, not the North Carolina arrests). U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
