Authorities in four U.S. states have announced the arrests of multiple illegal immigrants accused of causing fatal crashes, with victims including a 15-year-old boy and others. These incidents have sparked increased federal and local law enforcement efforts, with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) issuing detainer requests in several cases. The Department of Homeland Security’s Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs, Tricia McLaughlin, commented on the situation, stating that these deaths are preventable because these individuals should not have been in the U.S.
One notable case is in Louisiana, where 31-year-old Juan Alfredo Chavarria Lezama is accused of fatally hitting a 15-year-old boy on his bicycle. The boy was airlifted to a hospital but later died. Chavarria faces charges of vehicular homicide, driving while intoxicated, and driving without a license. He was also subject to an ICE detainer request. In another incident, a 3:30 a.m. crash in Nashville left a woman dead and her husband seriously injured; Julio Cesar Herrera-Gonzales, an illegal immigrant from Honduras, was arrested and faces charges including vehicular homicide and drunken driving. The Department of Homeland Security noted that Herrera-Gonzales was previously granted Temporary Protected Status in 2008 but had it revoked in 2015.
These crashes have drawn attention from federal agencies and media outlets. A 31-year-old illegal immigrant from Angola, Lionel Francisco, is accused of hitting a Massachusetts woman while driving with a learner’s permit and facing an ICE detainer. In Maine, another illegal immigrant from Angola, Mukendi Mbiya, is accused of killing a 64-year-old woman who was walking. Mbiya entered the U.S. with a tourist visa in 2018, which expired in 2019, but he remained in the country illegally. In Florida, Harjinder Singh, an illegal immigrant from India, is accused of causing a crash that killed three people due to failing an English proficiency test and not recognizing traffic signs, despite his limited license from Washington state.
Other cases include the death of two high school sweethearts in Wisconsin, where 30-year-old Noelia Saray Martinez-Avila, an illegal immigrant from Honduras, is accused of driving the wrong way and causing the crash. Martinez-Avila had a previous conviction for drunken driving in 2020. President Donald Trump’s administration has been involved in a nationwide crackdown on migrant crime since he returned to office, with ICE actively searching for individuals in cases where sanctuary policies may block detention. McLaughlin emphasized the need for ICE’s intervention in these cases, highlighting the tragic consequences of illegal immigration.