Five-time illegal alien re-entrant accused of threatening ICE officers arrested in Texas, feds say

A Mexican national who illegally entered the U.S. at least five different times and is accused of threatening to shoot Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers has been arrested, federal authorities announced Tuesday.

According to an ICE news release, 30-year-old Mexican national Cesar Diaz-Rodriguez was arrested in Houston, Texas, this week for illegal re-entry. He was last removed from the U.S. in 2017 after a felony firearms conviction. Before that, he was sent back to Mexico twice in 2004 and once in 2011.

ICE says it has "several anonymous tips" that the fugitive has also threatened to shoot its officers and that those tips helped locate him for the arrest. The investigation is being conducted as a joint effort between the agency's offices in Houston and Boise, Idaho.

“This individual brazenly ignored U.S. immigration law, while simultaneously threatening the lives of the brave men and women sworn to uphold it,” Patrick Contreras, field office director for ICE Houston, said in the release. “By working together with our partners from ERO Boise, we have removed this dangerous criminal alien from the community before he could act on those cowardly threats.”

Re-entering the United States after being removed is a felony under federal law. A Justice Department report from August shows that 72 percent of federal prosecutions against non-citizens are for illegal re-entry, while a mere .3 percent of them are made against first-time immigration violators.

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