Illegal aliens arrested in Alabama for running 'sex trade operation'

Humberto Erazo-Medrano, 42, and Ricardo Castaneda, 33, were arrested for their participation in an ongoing "sex trade operation." (Photo: Albertville Police Department) — Humberto Erazo-Medrano, 42, and Ricardo Castaneda, 33, were arrested for their participation in an ongoing “sex trade operation.” (Photo: Albertville Police Department)

ALBERTVILLE, Ala. — Two illegal aliens were arrested in Alabama over the weekend for their participation in what authorities are describing as an “ongoing sex trade operation.”

Ricardo Castaneda, 33, and Humberto Erazo-Medrano, 42, were taken into custody after Albertville police, Marshall County Sheriff’s deputies, the FBI and the Dept. of Homeland Security executed a search warrant on a residence in Albertville.

“Officers and agents located multiple items which supported suspicions of an ongoing sex trade operation at the residence,” a spokesperson for the Albertville Police Department said in a press release. Law enforcement officials did not provide any further details in announcing the arrests, but they are believed to have been made in conjunction with the takedown of a multi-state prostitution ring.

Authorities were not immediately able to verify Mr. Erazo-Medrano’s and Mr. Castaneda’s country of origin.

Their arrests come on the heels of months of national headlines detailing the illicit activities of illegal aliens in various parts of the United States.

According to police, Ramiro Ajualip, a 27-year-old illegal Mexican immigrant living in Alabama, confessed to raping a ten-year-old Alabama girl in March of 2015. But while the story received some local coverage at the time, the national media only recently brought renewed attention to the attack as a result of controversial comments made by Republican presidential contender Donald Trump.

According to police, Ajualip raped and sodomized the young girl, then threatened her life in an attempt to keep her quiet. She later broke down and revealed the vicious attack to her parents.

“You know, (it was) a 10-year-old child that probably has no idea what`s really going on,” said Russellville Police Chief Chris Hargett. “It`s sad because now that child is going to be scarred for the rest of her life.”

The murder of Kate Steinle, a young San Francisco girl who was shot by an illegal alien who had been convicted of seven felonies but never deported, also sparked a national conversation about so called sanctuary cities. Sanctuary cities do not enforce federal immigration laws, often allowing criminal illegal aliens to be released back onto the streets, rather than working with federal law enforcement to have them deported.

Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions has frequently lambasted the Obama Administration for not cracking down on sanctuary cities, choosing instead to allow widespread de facto “amnesty.”

“What the American people know and what the families of victims of violent crime know is that this Administration has consistently and steadfastly placed the goal of amnesty above the goal of public safety,” Sen. Sessions said earlier this year. “If this Administration spent one-tenth of the effort on enforcement and protecting people from crimes and punishing people who are criminals who violate our immigration laws, rather than on amnesty, we’d be a lot safer today. Many of the people who have been injured, robbed, or killed by illegal aliens would be alive today. That’s just fact and everybody knows it.”

Sen. Sessions also sponsored a bill to “end the mass release of criminal aliens, return law and order to devastated communities, and ensure the consistent and uniform application of federal law. The proposal, which builds on legislation introduced by House Immigration and Border Security Subcommittee Chairman Trey Gowdy, is named after Detective Michael Davis and Deputy Danny Oliver, two local law enforcement officers who were murdered by an illegal alien with an extensive criminal history.”

In the last two years, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has released back onto the streets 76,000 convicted criminal aliens. There are currently 169,000 criminal aliens at large in the United States who have criminal convictions and were formally and lawfully ordered deported.

The Obama Administration’s tolerance of sanctuary cities has also resulted in another 10,000 potentially deportable arrested aliens being released by local law agencies since January of 2014. 121 of the criminal aliens who’ve been ordered deported in the last few years and were released by Immigration and Customs Enforcement have now been charged with additional homicide offenses.