Nearly 50 illegal immigrants have been arrested and charged with crimes in eastern Michigan 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.

Go Ad-Free, Get Content, Go Premium Today - $1 Trial

“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. “I could not be more proud of our agents for their enforcement efforts as well as their ability to form strong bonds with our local, state and federal partnerships such as we see exemplified here with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.”

Examples cited by the U.S. Attorney’s Office include Mexican national Hector Bejerano-Bejerano, who was harassing customers at a Novi gas station. Bejerano was arrested by U.S. Border Patrol, which uncovered two prior immigration convictions, including one for smuggling three other illegal immigrants into the country.

“According to court filings in that case, Bejerano-Bejerano was encountered by Border Patrol 18 times during 2021 alone,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office reports.

Mexican national Dulce Rubio-Rivera was arrested when the FBI and ICE executed a search warrant on a home in Detroit and found him inside, along with 6.25 kilograms of crystal methamphetamine, a scale, ammunition and an AK-47 rifle, officials allege.

Go Ad-Free, Get Content, Go Premium Today - $1 Trial

It was a similar deal with Gustavo Placencia-Rosales, a Mexican national who was arrested on firearm and drug trafficking charges amid a Drug Enforcement Agency investigation. Placencia-Rosales was arrested with three others during a traffic stop in which police recovered four brick-shaped packages that field tested positive for cocaine, along with two firearms.

Columbian national Luis Gerardo Rodriguez-Rey also faces weapons offenses after the River Rouge Police Department clocked him speeding in a vehicle with no exterior lights and conducted a traffic stop. A search during the stop produced a Smith & Wesson pistol and ammunition, according to the attorney’s office.

Luis Angel Alvarez-Alvarez, an illegal immigrant from Venezuela, was also arrested during a traffic stop after agents with ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations and U.S. Border Patrol found him driving with no license plate, authorities allege.

When agents searched Alvarez’s phone, they found child pornography, and he’s now in custody facing felony charges.

While some of the cases illustrate the kinds of dangerous hombres making their way to Michigan from the southern border, others shed light on how easy it is to cross over.

Mexican national Luis Fernando Santillan-Valderrabano, arrested as a passenger in a vehicle in Detroit, initially entered the U.S. on a special 72-hour visa, but was arrested five months later for theft in Georgia.

According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office:

“A year after that, he was again arrested and convicted in Nebraska for resisting arrest and felony theft. Santillan-Valderrabano was removed back to Mexico in 2009, but illegally returned and was arrested in 2010 in Ithaca, Michigan, for a driving offense. Santillan-Valderrabano was removed again but tried to sneak back into the United States in 2011, was caught, and federally prosecuted in Texas for illegal entry. Santillan-Valderrabano was removed a third time in 2011, but again tried to illegally enter the United States, was caught, federally prosecuted in Texas for illegal reentry, and removed in 2012. In 2021, he was arrested in Wixom, Michigan, for driving 86 miles per hour in a 45 mile per hour zone. During this encounter with police, he used a fake name and date of birth and failed to appear for his court hearing after being charged with reckless driving, providing false identification, and not having a vehicle operation license.”

The arrests come amid the biggest deportation effort in American history, initiated on day one of President Donald Trump’s second term in January.

“The United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Michigan has a long-standing commitment to enforcing the immigrations laws of the United States, and that commitment is unwavering,” said Acting U.S. Attorney Julie Beck.

“All illegal entry will immediately be halted. And we will begin the process of returning millions and millions of criminal aliens back to the places from which they came,” Trump said in his inauguration speech.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office oversees federal crimes in Michigan, while state and local police have arrested countless other illegal immigrants in recent years for a wide range of crimes, from sexual assaults to gruesome murders.

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 followed 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.

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

Data from Immigration and Customs Enforcement released in September showed more than 662,000 illegal immigrants on the agency’s docket who have criminal convictions or charges pending.

Those criminals, the vast majority free to roam the U.S., include 13,099 convicted murderers, 15,811 convicted of sexual assaults, 162,231 convicted of assault, 56,533 with dangerous drug convictions, 5,797 convicted of fraud, 18,234 convicted of larceny, 14,301 convicted of burglary, 13,423 with weapons convictions 10,031 convicted of robbery, 9,461 with non-assaultive sexual convictions, 2,521 kidnappers, and 217 convicted of extortion.