FAIRFAX, Va., July 8 (DC Times Online) — Juan Arevalo Mendez, a 46-year-old Salvadoran national whom the Department of Homeland Security says was deported twice, faces rape and abduction charges in Fairfax County, Virginia, after an arrest last week in Prince William County and an ICE detainer, according to DHS and Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
DHS said in a statement quoted by Fox News that Virginia has become a “hotbed of illegal alien crime” under Gov. Abigail Spanberger. The department also said Spanberger signed an executive order ending the state’s 287(g) agreement, which had linked local law enforcement with federal immigration authorities.
A Fairfax County Sheriff’s Office spokesperson, Allyson Conroy, told Fox that Arevalo Mendez remains in custody at the Fairfax County Adult Detention Center.
DHS said Arevalo Mendez entered the United States legally in 1991, lost that status after a 1998 destruction-of-property conviction, was deported in 2003, re-entered illegally, was deported again in 2014, and later re-entered again at an unknown date and location. The department said his criminal history also includes multiple assault convictions, drug possession, obstructing justice, identity theft and larceny.
Fox reported that the charges stem from an alleged attack in Fairfax County last September. DHS also said it has identified 17 alleged serious crimes by illegal immigrants in Virginia this year, nine of them in Fairfax County.
