An illegal alien with multiple convictions apparently managed to escape an ICE detention facility in Washington state last week — but he wasn’t gone long.
On Wednesday night, Alvaro Flores-Barboza, a 24-year-old Venezuelan national with alleged ties to Tren de Aragua, reportedly managed to escape the Northwest ICE Processing Center in Tacoma. Officials have not clarified how he managed to evade detection and scale fences topped with barbed wire, though KOMO reported that a “severe” storm blew through the area that day.
The cop … was temporarily hamstrung by an Oregon law forcing officers to ‘take no action’ on ICE warrants without a judge’s signature.
By 3 a.m. Saturday, a deputy spotted Flores-Barboza outside a bar in Aloha, Oregon, some 150 miles or so south of Tacoma. The cop soon realized that Flores-Barboza was wanted by ICE, but he was temporarily hamstrung by an Oregon law forcing officers to “take no action” on ICE warrants without a judge’s signature.
The officer then scrambled to determine whether the suspect’s warrant had been signed. Once he realized that it was, he went looking for Flores-Barboza in the area. He found the suspect walking about at around 5:30 a.m. and arrested him without further incident.
Flores-Barboza is once again “facing removal” from the United States, ICE Seattle posted to social media on Saturday.
The GEO Group, the private company that owns the Northwest ICE Processing Center, issued a statement about the incident:
The safety and security of the Northwest ICE Processing Center and our neighbors in the local community is our top priority. We are working urgently to ensure that all necessary corrective actions are implemented to prevent such instances from reoccurring.
In the last year alone, Flores-Barboza has had a string of encounters with law enforcement that have nothing to do with the fact that he apparently stole into the U.S. illegally at some point. Last May, he was arrested on five separate charges, including a misdemeanor assault to which he admitted, KOIN reported.
Two months later, Flores-Barboza was arrested again, this time for five different charges. He was convicted of two of them: misdemeanor reckless driving and felony use of a weapon.
Those two separate cases were both resolved in December. For the May charges, Flores-Barboza was sentenced to two years of supervised probation and given a $100 fine. For the July charges, he was sentenced to time served, though his driver’s license was suspended and he was ordered not to have any contact with his victims, KOIN said.
“He was also ordered to obey all laws,” the outlet added.
Flores-Barboza apparently ignored that directive, because on March 10, he was arrested once again. This time, he was accused of felony driving on a suspended license and giving a police officer false information. He was then booked into Washington County Jail.
The following day, he was released from custody due to a lack of bed space and ordered to appear in court on March 20. According to KPTV, Flores-Barboza actually showed up for that court appearance, perhaps because he had just been taken into ICE custody in Portland. However, officials were still trying to find him an attorney and he was not given another court date.
It is unclear how he ended up at the Tacoma detention facility between March 20 and his apparent escape on March 26.
Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!
Alvaro flores-barboza, Ice, Seattle, Tacoma, Illegal alien, Criminal illegal alien, Politics, Illegal immigration, Immigration
