🔴 ICE touts arrests of three unauthorized immigrants in New Jersey in the past month.
🔴 Each is accused or convicted of serious crimes, such as sexual assault or neglect.
🔴 One arrest sparked a GoFundMe campaign calling the detention a “kidnapping.”
NEWARK — As tensions over immigration enforcement escalate nationwide, three unauthorized immigrants accused of heinous crimes have been arrested in New Jersey over the last month.
Most recently, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Newark office announced the arrest of Avilio Noel Salazar Martinez. He’s being held until his deportation.
Martinez was arrested on Jan. 13. According to ICE, he’s an unauthorized immigrant from Honduras who is “wanted for violent crimes and ties to criminal organizations in his home country.”
And nearly one month ago, Efren Cortez-Velez was arrested by ICE on Dec. 28, 2025, during a targeted enforcement operation. According to a press release, Cortez-Velez is an unauthorized immigrant from Mexico with prior convictions in Passaic.
ICE said that in 2007, he pleaded guilty to criminal trespass and resisting arrest, and paid a $377 fine. Later that same year, he was arrested for child endangerment. He pleaded guilty to abuse, abandonment, cruelty and neglect and was sentenced to six months in prison.
ICE defends mission amid political backlash and rising assaults
ICE officials tout the arrests as examples of why their mission is necessary. According to ICE Director Todd Lyons, the agency’s officers are doing their jobs while facing a 1,347% increase in assaults…