The Unit­ed States Im­mi­gra­tion and Cus­toms En­force­ment (ICE) agency says agents from its En­force­ment and Re­moval Op­er­a­tions (ERO) in Bal­ti­more, Mary­land have ap­pre­hend­ed an un­doc­u­ment­ed Trinida­di­an na­tion­al among five im­mi­grants in a “tar­get­ed op­er­a­tion” through­out Mary­land.

ICE said Justin Je­re­mi­ah John­son, 18, was ar­rest­ed among un­doc­u­ment­ed na­tion­als from Guatemala, Hon­duras and El Sal­vador.

The im­mi­gra­tion en­force­ment agency said that John­son en­tered the Unit­ed States on May 2, 2021, at John F. Kennedy Air­port in New York.

“How­ev­er, he vi­o­lat­ed the terms of his ad­mis­sion, and the Bal­ti­more City Cir­cuit Court Mary­land con­vict­ed John­son of rob­bery on Sep­tem­ber 30, and sen­tenced him to eight years in prison, fol­lowed by three years of su­per­vised pro­ba­tion.”

Bal­ti­more Field Of­fice Di­rec­tor Matthew El­lis­ton said:

“This tar­get­ed op­er­a­tion re­sult­ed in the ar­rest of five non-cit­i­zens with se­ri­ous crim­i­nal his­to­ries in­clud­ing fen­tanyl dis­tri­b­u­tion, gang ac­tiv­i­ty, drug car­tel as­so­ci­a­tion, as­sault, and sex­u­al as­sault.”

“ERO Bal­ti­more will not tol­er­ate these egre­gious non-cit­i­zen of­fend­ers vic­tim­iz­ing our Mary­land com­mu­ni­ties,” he added.

ICE said all in­di­vid­u­als will re­main in cus­tody pend­ing re­moval pro­ceed­ings.

It said ERO con­ducts re­movals of in­di­vid­u­als with­out a law­ful ba­sis to re­main in the Unit­ed States, in­clud­ing at the or­der of im­mi­gra­tion judges with the Jus­tice De­part­ment’s Ex­ec­u­tive Of­fice for Im­mi­gra­tion Re­view. —BAL­TI­MORE, Mary­land (CMC)