The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on Friday, November 13, publicly highlighted five arrests made by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in Houston, Texas, presenting the men as among the most dangerous people the agency has taken into custody in the city. The release, issued in Washington and distributed the same day, names each man, his country of origin, his arrest date in October, and the criminal convictions DHS says are on his record.

The announcement is a direct federal response in an argument that has been building in Houston for more than a week. As this site reported earlier, Houston Mayor John Whitmire last week directed city police to stop cooperating with ICE on nonviolent offences, and three Houston councilmembers — Alejandra Salinas, Edward Pollard and Tiffany Thomas — on Tuesday introduced an ordinance that would ban local police from cooperating with ICE. DHS released its Houston list against that backdrop, and framed the arrests as the reason such cooperation should continue.

What the Homeland Security Secretary said

"Sanctuary politicians are putting political power over protecting their constituents. But DHS will never stop removing dangerous illegal aliens from our communities," Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said in the statement. "In the city of Houston, Texas, we have arrested cop-killers, child molesters, and drunk drivers. The mission continues, and we won't let sanctuary politicians stop us from arresting and removing criminals like these." The quotations and the case details below are DHS's own account, as published in its release; they describe convictions DHS says the men already carry, not new charges filed this week.

The five cases DHS named

Javier Hernandez Alcon, from Mexico, was arrested by ICE on October 20. DHS says his criminal history includes convictions for homicide — the willful killing of a police officer with a weapon — burglary by forced entry of a residence, and illegal entry. An immigration judge issued him a final order of removal on March 6, 2000; DHS says he was deported twice, in 2000 and 2014, and later entered the United States a third time at an unknown date and location.

Apolinar Santibanez Avellanea, also from Mexico, was arrested by ICE on October 16. DHS says his record includes convictions for murder and driving while intoxicated, that he had been deported twice before — in 2008 and 2025 — and that ICE deported him again on October 27, 2026. Victor Andres Ayala Rosales, from El Salvador, was arrested on October 12; DHS says he carries a conviction for indecency with a child by sexual contact, and that he entered the United States at an unknown date and location. No victim in that case is identified in the release, and none is named here.

Robert Alejandro Ortuno Guerra, from Venezuela, was arrested on October 2. DHS says his convictions include third-degree cruelty to children and attempting to evade arrest with a vehicle. He entered the United States through Texas in May 2023, was arrested by the U.S. Border Patrol and then released into the country, and an immigration judge issued him a final order of removal on May 2, 2024. Jose Francis Diaz Cortez, from Honduras, was arrested on October 27; DHS says he was convicted of aggravated kidnapping resulting in bodily injury, entered through Texas in September 2023, was arrested by Border Patrol and released, and received a final order of removal on November 3, 2026.

5men named in the DHS Houston release
Oct 2–27range of the ICE arrest dates listed
2000year of the earliest final removal order cited

Why Houston, and why now

Houston is one of the largest immigrant cities in the United States and one of the Texas hubs — along with Dallas — where Punjabi and other South Asian families, students and truck drivers follow every change in immigration enforcement closely. The city's police-cooperation rules decide, in practice, when a traffic stop or a local arrest can turn into an immigration case. That is why a mayoral order limiting cooperation, a council ordinance going further, and now a federal release naming convicted offenders are all part of the same local fight, and why each side is choosing its examples carefully: the city side points to nonviolent cases, the federal side to the most serious convictions it can list.

Readers should note what this release is and is not. It is a selection, chosen by DHS, of five October arrests with serious prior convictions; it is not a count of everyone ICE arrested in Houston in that period, and DHS gave no citywide total in this statement. The convictions listed are attributed to DHS throughout this report. Independent reporting on the release, including American Greatness's account of the same statement, confirms the political sequence behind it: Whitmire's order came first last week, the three councilmembers' ordinance followed on Tuesday, and the federal highlight list followed on Friday.

What happens next

For the five men, DHS says final removal orders are already in place in at least three of the cases, and one man — Santibanez Avellanea — has already been deported, on October 27. For Houston, the next step is political: the council ordinance introduced by Salinas, Pollard and Thomas remains before the city even as DHS campaigns against it in public. Expect the debate to continue in council meetings in the coming days, with the federal list now on the record as the administration's central argument.