An illegal immigrant from Cuba and another man from Florida are facing criminal charges in connection to several stolen trucks and a drug house in Clare County’s Frost Township.

Clare County sheriff’s deputies were investigating the theft of a black 2025 Ford F-350 from a dealership in Coldwater when they tracked the vehicle to a residence off East Haskell Lake Road on Friday, Lt. Aaron Miller told the Morning Sun.

While at the residence, detectives discovered two other Ford trucks stolen from Arizona and Colorado – a white 2024 F-250, and a silver 2024 F-350 – and secured a search warrant.

The search revealed an illegal marijuana grow operation inside a pole barn on the property, resulting in criminal charges against the homeowner and an illegal immigrant who was previously staying in Wheeler.

Detectives seized the three stolen Ford trucks, 75 marijuana plants, about a pound of marijuana, an unregistered 9mm pistol, and $10,000 in cash.

Deputies arrested Cuban immigrant Yasmani Plascencia Diaz, 32, on a felony count of receiving and concealing property worth more than $20,000. Diaz is currently in Clare County Jail on an immigration detainer from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement because he’s in the country illegally, WWTV reports.

The homeowner, Yoandy Ozuna-Lara, 40, was charged with one count of receiving and concealing property worth more than $20,000, one count of maintaining a drug house, one county of weapons felony firearm, and one count of possession of a pistol without a license.

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Ozuna-Lara, who recently moved from Florida, was arraigned in 80^th District Court in Harrison, where he was ordered to remain in jail on a $60,000 bond, while Diaz’s bond was set $25,000, according to the Morning Sun.

The case is just one of several involving illegal immigrants in Clare County in recent months.

In late February, an illegal immigrant from Guatemala was arrested following a drunken high-speed chase in Freeman Township near Lake Station, according to police.

Multiple callers on Feb. 23 reported a blue GMC Terrain driving erratically on M-115 around 5:24 p.m., and a sheriff’s deputy found the vehicle stopped on the shoulder of the road. When the road sergeant attempted to check on the vehicle, it sped away, according to WJRT.

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The sergeant followed and attempted to conduct a traffic stop. The Terrain initially stopped and waited for the deputy to exit his vehicle, then sped away again.

The sergeant returned to his vehicle and pursued the Terrain, which reached speeds of up to 130 mph. The vehicle eventually turned eastbound on US-10, then north on US-127, where a Clare County deputy deployed spike strips to blow out the vehicle’s tires, WWTV reports.

Elmer Rafael Vicente Vicente, 43, was eventually arraigned on 10 criminal charges and booked into Clare County Jail, where he was held on a $70,000 bond and immigration detainer from ICE because he was living in Mt. Pleasant illegally, The Morning Sun reports.

The month before that, Clare County Sheriff’s deputies arrested Victor Julio Tellaria-Sanchez, a 36-year-old illegal immigrant, after he allegedly purchased a vehicle for $3,600 from a resident on Facebook Marketplace using fake $100 bills, according to the Clare County Cleaver.

Tellaria-Sanchez was later located with the vehicle in St. Joseph County, arrested and charged with two felony counts, one for larceny by false pretenses over $1,000 but under $20,000, a 15-year felony, and another for uttering and publishing counterfeit notes, a five-year felony.

Other crimes committed by illegal immigrants this year have cost Michiganders their lives.

A previously deported illegal immigrant from Mexico murdered his girlfriend’s mother and injured two others in a shooting spree last month at an Alpine Township home, police allege.

Gilberto Hernandez-Mendez, 42, was arraigned on 11 felony counts, including open murder, attempted homicide, and multiple weapons offenses in what the Kent County Sheriff’s Office described as a domestic dispute.

Hernandez-Mendez, who faces up to life in prison if convicted, remains in the Kent County Jail on an ICE detainer with a probable cause hearing scheduled for March 5.

He’s at least the third illegal immigrant charged with murder in Kent County in as many years.

In May 2023 illegal immigrant Luis Bernal-Sosa gunned down the mother of his young child, 22-year-old Leah Gomez, while she was sitting in her car with the child in the back seat. Bernal-Sosa, a Mexican national, was sentenced to life in prison with no option for parole in April 2024.

A month later, previously deported illegal immigrant Brandon Ortiz-Vite murdered Grand Rapids’ Ruby Garcia with an illegally purchased handgun before dumping the woman’s body alongside U.S. 131 and fleeing in her car. Ortiz-Vite, a Mexican national deported by President Donald Trump in 2020, was sentenced in November to 39 years in prison.

The most recent arrests in Clare and Kent counties come amid the largest deportation operation in U.S. history following Trump’s election victory in November.

In eastern Michigan alone, nearly 50 illegal immigrants have been arrested and charged with crimes in 2025, including many with multiple prior offenses and deportations.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Michigan has charged 46 illegal immigrants with a range of crimes since the new year, from drug trafficking to illegal firearms possession to child pornography offenses.

The cases involved individuals from Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico and Venezuela who entered the country illegally with prior convictions for human smuggling, drug trafficking, drunken driving, assault, and theft.

“These cases represent a fraction of the criminal aliens we and our federal partners arrest every day across the Detroit Sector that’s making this country safer than it was just a few short months ago,” Detroit Sector Chief Patrol Agent John R. Morris said in a statement.

Michigan Republicans have vowed to halt some state funding for municipalities that provide sanctuary to illegal immigrants and are working to align state policies with federal law, but face resistance from Democrats who have provided housing vouchers and other benefits for “newcomers.”

The promise to withhold funding is aimed to counter discussions in multiple Michigan municipalities about implementing sanctuary policies, including a shelved proposal in Kalamazoo Township, and rallies and demands at city commission meetings in Grand Rapids, among others.

Trump’s Department of Justice, meanwhile, is working to identify state and local officials who “threaten to impede” deportations, The Associated Press reports.