ERO Houston removes Mexican fugitive wanted for homicide
HOUSTON — Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) Houston, with assistance from ERO Mexico and the Security Alliance for Fugitive Enforcement (SAFE) Task Force, removed Angel Morales Colores, a 46-year-old Mexican fugitive, from the United States on May 11. Morales is wanted in Mexico for aggravated homicide.
Deportation officers from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) ERO Houston Field Office transported Morales from the Montgomery Processing Center in Conroe to the Juarez-Lincoln Bridge in Laredo. Upon arrival, he was transferred into the custody of Mexican law enforcement authorities.
Morales illegally entered the United States on an unknown date and at an unknown location. On April 6, ERO Houston lodged an immigration detainer on Morales with the Harris County Sheriff’s Office following his arrest on local charges. The Harris County Sheriff’s Office transferred him into ICE custody on April 12. On April 27, an immigration judge with the Justice Department’s Executive Office for Immigration Review ordered Morales removed from the United States to Mexico. On May 11, he was removed to Mexico.
“Foreign fugitives fleeing criminal prosecution in their home country will find no safe haven here in Southeast Texas,” said ERO Houston Deputy Field Office Director Paul McBride. “Our immigration officers work closely with their state and local counterparts to identify and remove unlawfully present individuals from our communities who are wanted for violent crimes in other countries so that they can be repatriated to face justice for their alleged crimes.”
Members of the public who have information about foreign fugitives are urged to contact ICE by calling the ICE Tip Line at 866-347-2423 or internationally at 001-1802-872-6199. They can also file a tip online by completing ICE’s online tip form.
For more news and information on how the ERO Houston field office carries out its immigration enforcement mission in Southeast Texas, follow us on Twitter @EROHouston.
The SAFE Program is a fugitive enforcement and information sharing partnership that was created in 2012 to better use subject information derived from local in-country investigative resources and leads to locate, apprehend, detain and remove individuals residing in the United States illegally who were subject to foreign arrest warrants. The SAFE Program operates under the respective host nation’s assistant attaché for removal (AAR), which constructs a SAFE task force composed of relevant foreign law enforcement agencies, immigration authorities, attorneys general, and national identification repositories — as well as other regional, national, state and local government agencies. The managing AAR ensures that each task force member complies with SAFE policies and standards consistent with the program’s standard operating procedures. Once established, the AAR-led SAFE task force generates new leads and vets existing SAFE fugitive referrals for ERO action.
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.
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