Former Mexican Police Officer Wanted for Murder Arrested in Denver

HOUSTON, Texas — A former Mexican police officer, who is wanted in his home country for aggravated homicide, was arrested in Denver on Tuesday. 

According to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), 41-year-old Jesus Gabriel Ibarra-Espinoza allegedly shot a man in 2000 while he was on an assignment providing security to a local party in Mocorito, Mexico. Ibarra-Espinoza was apparently “visibly intoxicated” at the time. After shooting a man with his AR-15 police rifle, the officer reportedly fled the scene and subsequently abandoned his weapons. 

ICE reported that Ibarra-Espinoza later entered the United States using a fake name. He was apprehended by U.S. authorities and deported once in 2000, but re-entered the country illegally through at California-based point of entry later that year. 

Authorities believe that Ibarra-Espinoza was living with family members including his wife up until his arrest in Denver. 

ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) ultimately arrested the Mexican national. ERO’s field office director in Denver said in a statement, “Our ERO officers ensure that dangerous fugitives don’t use the United States as a safe haven from their crimes in other countries. They provide a valuable public-safety service by removing dangerous criminal aliens from our communities.”

Ibarra-Espinoza is currently in custody waiting to go before a judge, according to ICE. 

Breitbart Texas attempted to reach out to ICE via email for more information on Ibarra-Espinoza’s arrest–the emails were not immediately returned. 

While Ibarra-Espinoza’s apprehension illustrate’s ICE’s ability to capture and remove dangerous illegal aliens from the country, many other criminal aliens are set free on U.S. soil each year. 

Breitbart Texas previously reported that in 2013 alone, more than 36,000 convicted criminal illegal aliens were set free by U.S. authorities. According to the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), the 36,000 criminals were collectively convicted of 88,000 crimes. These convictions include 426 sexual assaults, 303 kidnappings, 193 homicides, 1,317 domestic violence assaults, and 1,724 weapon offenses.

Amid this revelation, ICE agents were ordered to stay silent on the matter. “We were given specific instructions not to comment on that [CIS] report,” an ICE spokesman told Breitbart Texas. 

CIS Director of Policy Studies Jessica Vaughan said in her analysis of the figures, “We keep hearing from the administration that they are focused like a laser on enforcement against the worst of the worst, convicted criminals, as their top priority. On the other hand, they are releasing, at a rate of about 100 a day, aliens from their custody with criminal convictions, and many of them are serious criminal convictions.”

Follow Kristin Tate on Twitter @KristinBTate.