An illegal immigrant hid in the ceiling of a women’s bathroom in a Florida church while recording video on his phone, according to authorities.
The Fort Walton Beach Police Department arrested Panamanian illegal immigrant Aquilino Sanjur Ortega on Sunday after receiving a call about a possible armed person at Grace Church during a religious service. One woman said that while she was inside the women’s restroom, “she observed a mobile phone positioned above the ceiling with its camera pointed downward in her direction,” police said.
The woman “immediately” left the restroom and informed church staff.
Parishioners evacuated from the building before officers arrived at the scene, according to authorities. Witnesses told the officers that a man was hiding in the women’s restroom ceiling, which they confirmed after entering the church.
Ortega, who was unarmed, was swiftly arrested.
Ortega is charged with video voyeurism and disturbing a religious assembly.
Ortega came to the United States in March 2007 with a tourism visa that expired that September, federal law enforcement sources told The Daily Wire. Because Ortega overstayed his visa by nearly two decades, he’s considered an illegal immigrant.
As a result, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has lodged a detainer with the Okaloosa County Jail. Local authorities are likely to honor the request and hand Ortega over to federal authorities for eventual deportation.
He is being held on a $250,000 bond.
“Under President Trump and Secretary Mullin, criminal illegal aliens are not welcome in the U.S.,” the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) told The Daily Wire in response to the case.
Upon his return to the White House, President Donald Trump stripped churches, schools, and hospitals of protections that prevented ICE from entering. They were previously considered “sensitive” locations that ICE could not enter or go near.
“This action empowers the brave men and women in CBP [Customs and Border Protection] and ICE to enforce our immigration laws and catch criminal aliens — including murderers and rapists — who have illegally come into our country. Criminals will no longer be able to hide in America’s schools and churches to avoid arrest,” DHS said at the time of the policy change.
Trump’s border czar, Tom Homan, has said that ICE attempts to avoid those institutions. But if an illegal immigrant criminal tries to hide inside a church, ICE may go in to arrest them, Homan said while leading immigration operations in Minneapolis in February.
“Those locations are not off the table. I’ve said from day one, there’s no sanctuary for a significant public safety threat or a national security threat,” he said at the time.
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