DHS says anti-ICE agitators helped child rapists, gang members evade deportation

FIRST ON FOX: The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is detailing cases in which anti-ICE agitators actively helped criminal illegal immigrants evade federal arrest, including suspects accused of child rape, domestic abuse and gang-related violence.

The cases point to a growing pattern of organized interference with federal immigration enforcement during recent ICE operations. 

“These are the monsters that agitators and sanctuary politicians are protecting,” DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin told Fox News Digital. “We remind the public that obstructing law enforcement is a felony and a federal crime.”

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According to DHS, members of the anti-ICE Colorado Rapid Response Network alerted Jose Reyes Leon-Deras, a convicted child rapist, of ICE’s presence on June 20, 2025. A Facebook post by the anti-ICE group accused by DHS of helping with Leon-Deras’ evasion on June 20, indicates members affiliated with the anti-ICE group used a bullhorn that day to alert potential targets of ICE. 

The post suggested that police left without serving any warrants, while noting that agents returned in the days that followed. 

According to DHS, federal agents finally arrested Leon-Deras June 27, and he was issued a final order of removal Oct. 30 during the Trump administration’s ongoing operations in Colorado.

In a separate situation in Minneapolis, an apartment manager allegedly prevented federal immigration agents from entering a building where a criminal foreign national from Somalia, convicted of violent sex crimes and previously arrested for a high-level assault, was located. 

DHS accused the apartment manager of actively protecting a sex offender, Mahad Abdulkadir Yusuf, who had a conviction for criminal sexual conduct in the first degree. He allegedly forcibly compelled his victim to perform sex acts on him on multiple occasions. 

According to DHS, Yusuf was also arrested in 2016 for first-degree assault and had an active warrant out for obstructing police.

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Yusuf originally entered the United States in 1996 and was a lawful permanent resident, but his crimes made him eligible for removal, and ICE arrested him Dec. 31. 

Another child sex offender, Jozias Natanael Carmona-Pena, was allegedly assisted by not only agitators but sanctuary city leaders in Minneapolis, according to DHS. 

Carmona-Pena had pending charges for lewd and lascivious acts with a child, but he was released onto the streets of Minneapolis after local law enforcement allegedly denied ICE’s detainer request that Carmona-Pena be held until they could pick him up for immigration violations, according to the Trump administration. 

Carmona-Pena was issued a final order of removal in 2023 but remained in the country.

When federal officials sought to arrest Carmona-Pena Dec. 10, agitators allegedly swarmed immigration officials and obstructed their attempts to arrest the illegal alien accused of child sex crimes, including by ramming one of their cars into an ICE vehicle. 

Local police subsequently responded and provided assistance, but, according to DHS, the actions allowed Carmona-Pena to avoid arrest. He was eventually caught later that same month on Dec. 27 and is now in custody pending his removal.    

In another case from Milwaukee, a federal judge, Hannah Dugan, was convicted of felony obstruction for directing a criminal illegal alien, Eduardo Flores-Ruiz, charged with domestic abuse, out a backdoor inside her courthouse to avoid ICE agents. 

According to DHS, Flores-Ruiz had other violent criminal charges on his record, from strangulation, suffocation and battery to domestic abuse, when he was eventually arrested following the April evasion incident with Dugan. 

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Federal immigration officials in Illinois who were chasing down an alleged Venezuelan gang member in Illinois were obstructed by agitators as well, according to DHS.

DHS said when the suspect tried to barricade himself inside an apartment — after ramming his car into police — bystanders gathered around the officers and began throwing rocks and bottles at them.

According to DHS, local police would not assist. After several hours of negotiation, ICE officials took Acosta into custody. 

“As our law enforcement are putting their lives on the line to arrest heinous criminals, including child rapists, sex offenders, gang members and other violent offenders, our officers are facing a coordinated campaign of violence against them,” McLaughlin said Thursday. 

“President Trump and Secretary Noem have been very clear. We will  not let agitators slow us down from removing criminal illegal aliens from American neighborhoods. If you obstruct or assault law enforcement, you will be arrested and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”