A twice deported illegal alien from Honduras was charged with murder in Tennessee after a man was found in a burnt out vehicle in Nashville.
Kevin Castro-Garcia was charged in the murder of 37-year-old Elmer Nahum Miranda-Martinez whose body police said they found in the trunk of a car that had been set on fire in a “wooded area” in Nashville. On Monday, Immigration and Customs Enforcement announced that they had placed an immigration detainer on Castro-Garcia.
“This unlawfully present Honduran national is a threat to the safety of our local communities. He is a gang member with Sur 13, a transnational criminal organization. ERO New Orleans will pursue all possible criminal and administrative avenues to see that he is prosecuted and removed from our local community,” said ERO New Orleans Field Office Director Mellissa Harper in a statement. “ERO has removed him twice from the United States and yet he continues to choose to violate our laws. Castro-Garcia must answer for his continued disregard for the laws of this country.”
The detainer will require state or local law enforcement to notify ICE before releasing Castro-Garcia from custody. He is currently being held in Davidson County Jail.
Castro-Garcia was first encountered by U.S. Customs and Border Patrol in June 2002 near Laredo, Texas, when he was about 10-years-old, according to an ICE email sent to The Daily Wire. Days later he was released into his parents’ custody by Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS).
Three years later, a judge in Texas ruled that Castro-Garcia be deported from the U.S. after he did not show up to a removal hearing, ICE said.
It was not until five years later, in October 2010, that the ERO (Enforcement and Removal Operations) New Orleans Fugitive team in Nashville, Homeland Security Investigations, and the Metro Nashville Police Department (MNPD) located and arrested Castro-Garcia.
Castro-Garcia was identified as a member of the “Sur 13” gang and affiliated with “Surenos Locos Criminales” before he was then sent back to Honduras in November 2010.
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In October 2018, Border Patrol again arrested Castro-Garcia at the border, this time near Hidalgo, Texas, where he was again ordered to be deported. In March 2019, ICE again flew Castro-Garcia back to Honduras.
At some point later, Castro-Garcia entered the U.S. illegally for a third time, but ICE says it does not know when or where he entered.
On September 27, the body of Miranda-Martinez was found in a smoldering car by a worker looking to clear brush. An affidavit from MNPD says that a source had told them that Castro-Garcia had said he committed the murder.
The arrest comes as Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti filed a complaint against DHS and ICE over reported plans from the Biden administration to release illegal immigrants into Tennessee.