U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced on Monday that the federal agency arrested a previously convicted, twice deported illegal immigrant who sexually assaulted a Virginia woman.
The immigration agency revealed the January arrest of Nicolas Alberto Hernandez-Lopez, a citizen of El Salvador who was previously convicted of the second-degree sexual assault of a Fairfax County, Virginia woman in 2019, when the immigrant was determined to have violated the terms of his admission into the country.
According to ICE, Hernandez-Lopez (pictured above) was sentenced to prison after his 2019 conviction, and in four years later was served with a notice to appear by the agency that led to his deportation from the country in June 2023.
Despite being removed from the United States, ICE reported, “Hernandez-Lopez unlawfully re-entered the United States on an unknown date, at an unknown location, and without being inspected, admitted, or paroled by U.S. immigration officials.”
ICE confirmed Hernandez-Lopez was arrested on January 15 and stated that he remains in the agency’s custody. Field Office Director Patrick Divver stated the unlawful presence of convicted criminals would not be tolerated and seemed to confirm that Hernandez-Lopez did not immigrate legally before his arrest in 2019.
“Nicolas Alberto Hernandez-Lopez illegally reentered the United States, and then victimized a resident of our Virginia community. This is not something that the officers of ICE Washington, D.C. will tolerate,” said Divver. “We will continue our mission of arresting public safety threats and removing egregious alien offenders from our Washington, D.C. and Virginia neighborhoods.”
The announcement of the arrest comes as ICE has arrested more than 7,400 illegal immigrants during Trump’s first nine days back in the White House, with the agency reporting an additional nearly 6,000 detainers have been placed on individuals believed to be in the country illegally.
Trump administration border czar Tom Homan, who was ICE’s acting director for part of President Donald Trump’s first term, stated last week that while the total number of deportations is dependent on funding from Congress, the public should expect the agency’s activity to steadily increase.
“You’re going to see the numbers steadily increase, the number of arrests nationwide as we open up the aperture,” said Homan. “Right now, it’s concentrating on public safety threats, national security threats. That’s a smaller population. So we’re going to do this on a priority basis. That’s President Trump’s promise. But as that aperture opens, there’ll be more arrests nationwide.”
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Tom Pappert is the lead reporter for The Tennessee Star, and also reports for The Pennsylvania Daily Star and The Arizona Sun Times. Follow Tom on X/Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].
