A closely tattooed and “violent” MS-13 gangbanger wished in his native El Salvador on a gun rap was nabbed within the US by federal immigration authorities — practically 20 years after he was deported.
Joel Armando Mejia-Benitez, 38, was arrested in Silver Springs, Maryland, on Could 5 by US Customs and Immigration Enforcement brokers pending deportation proceedings, the company stated Friday.
Images launched by ICE present the migrant’s in depth gang tats, together with “MS” on his chest, a horned cranium on one shoulder over the phrases “Mara Salvatrucha” — MS-13’s title — and “Maryland” on his proper forearm, signaling his allegiance to the vicious crew.
“The arrest of this violent MS-13 gang member is a critical step in our ongoing mission to safeguard our communities,” ICE Baltimore Performing Discipline Workplace Director Nikita Baker stated in a press release.
“We remain steadfast in prioritizing public safety and protecting national security by targeting and removing dangerous criminal aliens who threaten the well-being of our Maryland residents.”
Mejia-Benitez was arrested by the US Border Patrol in Texas on Nov. 22, 2004, and was ordered to be deported again to his native El Salvador on Dec. 14, 2005, in response to ICE.
Federal brokers took the unlawful gangbanger into custody on the Prince George’s County Detention Heart on Sept. 28, 2006, and shipped him again house two months later, ICE stated.
Mejia-Benitez then snuck again into the US and was arrested once more on March 20, 2014.
He was turned over to authorities in Silver Springs after that arrest and held, earlier than he was taken into custody by ICE earlier this month for deportation, the feds stated.
The most recent arrest got here simply days earlier than one other infamous MS-13 member, Omar Antonio “Antichrist” Villalta, was sentenced to 55 years in federal jail for the savage 2017 quadruple machete homicide of 4 individuals on Lengthy Island.
Villalta, 29, was the sixth individual sentenced within the bloody April 11, 2017, bloodbath in Central Islip.
Additionally this month, MS-13 gang member Mario Clifford Rivera, a 32-year-old gangbanger nicknamed “Chuky,” was sentenced to 17 years behind bars in Florida on a fentanyl trafficking conviction.
Federal prosecutors stated Rivera overtly used the US mail to hawk the medicine.
MS-13 is among the many prison crews recognized as a terrorist group by the Trump administration.
