Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) Philadelphia removed Juan Martinez Merida to Mexico on Oct. 26. Martinez is a foreign fugitive wanted by law enforcement authorities in Mexico for murder.

Merida, a citizen of Mexico with a final order of removal, was an illegal alien, a ‘gotaway’ who was apprehended Aug. 22, 2023.

ERO Philadelphia arrested Martinez on Aug. 22, 2023, and charged him with inadmissibility in accordance with the Immigration and Nationality Act. An immigration judge with the Justice Department’s Executive Office for Immigration Review ordered his removal from the United States to Mexico on Oct. 6, 2023. Martinez waived his right to appeal.

ERO Philadelphia confirmed that there is an active warrant for Martinez’s arrest in Mexico.

ERO is the deportation branch of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

“ERO Philadelphia is dedicated to ensuring that individuals seeking to evade justice in their home countries are removed from our communities and returned home to face justice,” said ERO Philadelphia Field Office Director Cammilla Wamsley.

Juan Martinez Merida had a history of illegally crossing the U.S. border with Mexico. He had been detained at the U.S. border at least seven times and allowed voluntary departure. His last illegal crossing took place at an unknown location and the date is not known. Martinez entered the United States without admission or parole by an immigration official.

According to a news release by DHS, ERO is the federal law enforcement agency charged with immigration enforcement.

As one of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) three operational directorates, ERO is the principal federal law enforcement authority in charge of domestic immigration enforcement. ERO’s mission is to protect the homeland through the arrest and removal of those who undermine the safety of U.S. communities and the integrity of U.S. immigration laws, and its primary areas of focus are interior enforcement operations, management of the agency’s detained and non-detained populations, and repatriation of noncitizens who have received final orders of removal. ERO’s workforce consists of more than 7,700 law enforcement and non-law enforcement support personnel across 25 domestic field offices and 208 locations nationwide, 30 overseas postings, and multiple temporary duty travel assignments along the border.

This story is not one we often read about. The man was a gotaway. It’s been reported that about 1.6M gotaways have crossed the southern border and moved into the interior of the U.S. since January 2021 when Biden came into office. We don’t often read about them being captured and deported. How many more illegal aliens are in our country who are violent criminals wanted for murder and other crimes in their home country? We just don’t know because gotaways slip in without any vetting at all. It is normal to assume they run from law enforcement because they have criminal records and don’t want that to come out in their vetting. Asylum-seekers go to Border Patrol agents along the border and turn themselves in, knowing that even though their asylum claim will not be approved, they will likely be allowed to remain in the United States.

The majority of gotaways are single, military age men. However, they also include women and children, many who are smuggled, law enforcement officers say.

Gotaway data represents the best guess of agents who report the number of people they believe to be gotaways, agents have explained to The Center Square. Agents report gotaways based on images of people caught on cameras set up by Border Patrol, ranchers or private property owners. Agents also report gotaways after they “cut sign,” a term agents use to track people in the brush. They look for shoe or boot marks or areas wiped clean to hide them, broken limbs of trees or bushes, garbage and clothes left on the ground, among other signs to determine how many people might have come through. Based on this and other factors, agents report who and how many they believe are “known, reported gotaways.”

There were 172 illegal immigrants apprehended at the southern border in FY 2023 who appeared on a terror watch list. Who knows how many are gotaways who have not been matched to the terror watch list?

The Biden border crisis is a national security risk. The FBI is warning about lone wolf terror attacks and sleeper cells in the United States. Yet, the border crisis continues. I shudder to think what it will take for the Biden administration to take border security seriously.

This gotaway was from Mexico but illegal immigrants are coming from all over the world.

Customs and Border Protection (CBP) sources told Fox News that since Oct. 1 there were over 6,500 Chinese nationals encountered at the U.S.-Mexico border, along with over 700 Afghans.

There were over 140 encounters from Syria, over 80 from Iran and over 1,500 from Uzbekistan, the sources said.

Meanwhile, for the month of October, there were on average just over 1,000 “gotaways” a day – meaning migrants who evaded Border Patrol apprehension but who were caught on alternative forms of detection.

These numbers will only increase with Joe Biden in office. Immigration is a top issue for voters in 2024.