Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) issued an arrest detainer for an illegal alien from Mexico who has been charged with sexual misconduct and incest with a minor after the victim was found giving birth in a hospital parking lot in South Carolina.
In an announcement released yesterday, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said ICE filed the detainer Friday, the day after 43-year-old illegal alien Luis Armando Argueta Montejo was arrested by the Oconee County Sheriff’s Office.
The arrest came just days after the mother was found giving birth in the parking lot of the Oconee Memorial Hospital in Seneca, South Carolina, a small city in the sparsely populated northern part of the state.
According to a statement from the county sheriff, Montejo had allegedly engaged in sexual intercourse with the victim from the time she was 11 until she was 14 years old.
In order to protect the child’s identity, the sheriff’s department declined to release any further information on the victim, failing to state, in light of the incest charge, whether she was a stepchild or his own child.
Investigators are also still investigating to determine if Montejo is the father of the newborn.
According to DHS, Montejo told ICE he first entered the country in 2006, which would have been under the Bush administration. He has no previous criminal history in the United States.
The case began with county social services, which turned it over the sheriff’s Violent Crimes Unit of the Criminal Investigations Bureau.
The minor and her child were taken into protective custody, according to the sheriff.
DHS had harsh words for the suspect.
“This sicko should NEVER have been in our country to prey on children in the first place,” Acting Assistant Secretary Lauren Bis said. “He now faces charges for incest and multiple child sex crimes.”
Under the detainer, Montejo will be released to federal custody after he is released or after his case makes its way through the local justice system.
Assistant Secretary Bis said it speaks to the need for nationwide ICE cooperation:
Under Secretary Mullin, ICE lodged an arrest detainer with South Carolina to ensure this monster is never loose in our communities again. Thankfully, South Carolina cooperates with ICE law enforcement. This is why we need cooperation from state and local partners, so together we can keep criminals off our streets and make America safe again.
Montejo is being held on $80,000 bond.
Veteran crime writer Lowell Cauffiel is the author of the New York Times true crime best seller House of Secrets , which documents one of the worst cases of incest and child sex abuse in U.S. history, and nine other crime novels and nonfiction titles. See lowellcauffiel.com for more.