U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement announced May 6 that officers arrested Mario Ectali Lopez-Garcia, a Guatemalan national, at a correctional facility in Enfield, Connecticut, after he was sentenced for sexually assaulting a child younger than 16.
Lopez-Garcia was sentenced to 20 years in prison after being convicted of multiple counts of first-degree sexual assault of a minor and illegal sexual contact with a minor in New Haven. ICE said officers took him into custody before he could be released into the community after much of his sentence had been suspended, according to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Connecticut recorded 2,651 sex crime convictions from 2015 through 2019 involving about 1,896 offenders. The state report includes convictions across offense categories, including sexual assault, risk of injury to a minor, and other sex crime offenses, according to the Connecticut General Assembly.
Nearly 70 percent of ICE arrests involve illegal aliens charged with or convicted of a crime in the United States. DHS said recent enforcement operations included individuals convicted of sexual assault of minors and other offenses, according to the Department of Homeland Security.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement was established in 2003 as part of the Department of Homeland Security following the Sept. 11 attacks. The agency combines civil and criminal authorities to enforce federal immigration laws and conduct investigations related to homeland security and public safety, according to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
