The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has announced that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has filed a detainer against a criminal illegal immigrant accused of a heinous crime – allegedly leaving a 14-month-old child to drown in a bathtub.
ICE’s detainer requests that North Carolina officials keep Angel Israel Deras-Rivas, a citizen of El Salvador, in custody following his arrest in Garner this past Sunday.
DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin has openly criticized the immigration policies under the Biden administration, expressing his belief that these policies may have played a role in the tragic circumstances of this case.
“This individual, an illegal immigrant, is facing charges of murder along with felony child abuse after the tragic drowning of a 14-month-old in a bathtub,” Mullin stated in a formal message to News Media outlets.
Angel Israel Deras-Rivas was taken into custody after the alleged incident where he left a toddler, just over a year old, unsupervised in a bathtub filled with water. (Department of Homeland Security)
Deras-Rivas, 19, was caring for his stepchild when he allegedly left the toddler unattended in a bathtub filled with water, resulting in the child’s death, according to an arrest warrant cited by The Raleigh News & Observer. The incident happened just months after Deras-Rivas married the child’s mother in April, the outlet reported.
Immigration officials said Deras-Rivas, identified by DHS as a criminal illegal alien, unlawfully entered the United States through Texas in October 2023 and was released into the country by the Biden administration.
Angel Israel Deras-Rivas, a criminal illegal alien from El Salvador, left his 14-month-old stepchild to drown in a bathtub, DHS said. (Karen Warren/Houston Chronicle)
“That child would still be alive today if it weren’t for the reckless open-border policies of the Biden administration that released this criminal into our country in the first place. ICE is calling on officials in North Carolina to commit to not releasing this killer from jail, and to turn him over to ICE custody so we can get him out of our country.”
Immigration officials said ICE filed the detainer with the Wake County Sheriff’s Department on the same day Deras-Rivas was arrested.
ICE issued a detainer for Angel Israel Deras-Rivas after his arrest. (Bloomberg)
An ICE detainer typically requests that local law enforcement notify the agency before an individual’s release and hold the person for up to 48 additional hours beyond a scheduled release date, allowing ICE agents time to take the individual into federal custody for potential removal proceedings.
News Media reached out to the Garner Police Department for more information.