The detainees, captured in Florida and Texas, have convictions for homicide, aggravated assault and methamphetamine trafficking.
MADRID, Spain.- The United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement Service (ICE) detained two Cuban citizens with convictions for serious crimes in recent days, as part of a federal offensive aimed at capturing foreigners considered “highly dangerous,” according to reported the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in an official statement.
Those arrested were Sergio Jesus Villegas Dortadetained in the state of Florida, and Alberto Delgado Céspedes, captured in Texas. According to court records cited by authorities, Villegas Dorta has a record of intentional homicide with a weapon, in addition to previous convictions for robbery and aggravated assault with a weapon in Miami-Dade County.
In the case of Delgado CespedesICE confirmed that he had been convicted in Texas of manufacturing and delivering methamphetamine, a charge classified as a felony under state law.
DHS framed these arrests within its current strategy of prioritizing the detention of foreigners with convictions for violent or high-risk crimes. In its most recent statement, the Department assured that ICE is focusing “operational efforts” on individuals considered “the worst of the worst,” in response to criticism from organizations and legislators who question the selectivity of these operations.
The federal agency maintained that a significant percentage of those detained in recent weeks correspond to people with a serious criminal history, although it did not accompany the statement with figures broken down by nationality or type of crime.
The US authorities have not specified what will happen to Villegas Dorta and Delgado Céspedes after their arrest, nor what will be the final destination of their immigration processes. ICE indicated that the cases remain under review in accordance with established federal procedures.
These arrests are in addition to other detentions of Cubans with criminal records carried out by ICE in recent months. At the beginning of November Jorge Luis Díaz García, Eduardo Fundora Setién and Eduardo Luis Machín Pozo, all with previous convictions in the United States, were captured in different parts of Florida. In August, the agency had carried out similar operations that also resulted in the arrest of these same individuals, then identified by authorities as repeat offenders with a criminal history in the United States.
In recent years, Cuba has refused to receive some nationals with serious sentences or who arrived in the United States before the update of the bilateral immigration agreements of 2017, which has generated situations of immigration limbo for several of the detainees. In these cases, ICE has sometimes chosen to manage transfers to third countries. Such is the case of Juan Carlos Font Agüero, 59, who remains detained in a prison in the Kingdom of Eswatini, in southern Africa, after the Cuban authorities refused to admit him into the country after his deportation from the United States.
