ICE announces arrests of over 200 alleged illegal migrant child sex offenders in Houston in 6 months

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials on Monday revealed they have arrested more than 200 alleged child sex offenders in the Houston, Texas, area, who are in the country illegally, including five who were previously deported.

The 214 arrests all occurred within the past six months, and eclipses the 211 illegal migrants who were arrested in the area for the whole 2024 fiscal year, per Fox News. Those illegal migrants in both years were "charged or convicted of a sex offense involving a minor."

ICE said the apprehensions were a "direct result" of the Trump administration's "whole-of-government approach" to illegal immigration, which allowed the creation of multiagency teams that have led to an unprecedented number of arrests.

"Bringing together the resources and expertise of the entire federal law enforcement community to confront the overwhelming surge of illegal immigration that we saw over the past four years has resulted in the arrest and removal of historic numbers of violent criminal aliens, transnational gang members and child sex offenders," ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations Houston acting Field Office Director Paul McBride said in a statement. 

The arrests included five people who had been deported in the past, including one Mexican national who was deported four times. Jose Guadalupe Meza, 40, who was most recently deported in June, was convicted of "theft and sexual assault of a child."

"While we still have a long way to go to truly get this crisis under control, the strides we have made in just six months to make our local communities safer are substantial, and our officers continue to work tirelessly every day to get the worst of the worst criminal aliens out of Southeast Texas to return our communities to places we can all enjoy," McBride said. 

Misty Severi is a news reporter for Just The News. You can follow her on X for more coverage.