Illegal Guatemalan national arrested in Boston, convicted of sexual assault on child under 14: ‘Dire threat’

An illegal migrant from Guatemala has been arrested and convicted of assault and battery on a child under the age of 14, the Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) Boston announced on Tuesday. 

Officials said on Feb. 21, ERO Boston arrested a 34-year-old Guatemala national, who was recently convicted of sexual assault on a child.

“This individual represented a dire threat to the residents of Massachusetts,” said ERO Boston Field Office Director Todd M. Lyons. “Unlawfully present, convicted sex offenders should not be given the opportunity to re-offend. The victim of his crimes deserves better from our justice system. The men and women of ERO Boston will continue to protect our communities from such threats.”

The man, who was not named, was arrested in the North Shore city of Gloucester, and had been released by the Gloucester District Court, despite ERO Boston having filed an immigration detainer against him, according to officials.

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Officials believe the 34-year-old unlawfully entered the United States in April 2011 at an unknown location, and without being inspected or admitted by a U.S. immigration official. He was later detained and arrested in December 2023. 

The 34-year-old citizen of Guatemala was convicted in January of indecent assault and battery on a child under the age of 14, and a separate offense of assault and battery, in Gloucester District Court, officials stated. 

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He was ordered by the court to register as a sex offender with the state sex offender registry. However, the court ignored ERO Boston’s immigration detainer and released him back into the community.

Deportation officers with ERO Boston re-arrested the Guatemalan national without incident Feb. 21 in Gloucester, where he will remain in ICE custody pending removal proceedings before a federal immigration judge with the Justice Department’s Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR). 

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Officials said the capture of the Guatemalan sex offender was among the arrests that ERO Boston made as part of ICE’s recent coordinated national immigration enforcement effort. 

During the national operation, deportation officers from ERO field offices across the U.S. apprehended 275 unlawfully present non-citizen sex offenders during a nationwide law enforcement effort that ran for several weeks starting Feb. 5.