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A Mexican national reported to be an illegal immigrant wanted for the Texas shooting of five neighbors including a young boy, remained at large Monday morning.

More than 48 hours after the massacre in Cleveland, Texas, outside Houston, authorities are offering an $80,000 reward for information that leads to the capture of Francisco Oropesa.

Neighbors had allegedly asked Oropesa to stop firing his rifle in his yard late Friday so that a baby could sleep. The 38-year-old suspect, who authorities identified from video at the scene and by a Mexican consulate card, then entered the neighboring home and opened fire on five of the 10 people inside, allegedly killing the victims execution-style.

FBI Houston, which has taken over updates from the San Jacinto County Sheriff's Office, said Sunday evening that more than 250 law enforcement officers from over a dozen agencies were actively searching for Oropesa.

TEXAS FUGITIVE ACCUSED OF KILLING 5 WAS ILLEGALLY IN US; DEPORTED 5 TIMES

FBI Houston released the newest images of Francisco Oropesa and a prominent tattoo on his left forearm. Going forward, FBI said the subject's last name will be spelled "Oropesa" to better reflect his identity in law enforcement systems. (FBI Houston)

"FBI Houston and other local, state, & federal agencies will not stop assisting SJSO until he is captured and justice is brought on behalf of the five victims," they said.

FBI Special Agent in Charge James Smith announced Sunday an additional $25,000 FBI reward in connection with the investigation.

That increased the total reward amount to $80,000, up from the combined $55,000 being offered by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott's office and multi-county crime stoppers.

"My heart is with this 8-year-old little boy. I don't care if he was here legally. I don't care if he was here illegally. He was in my county. Five people died in my county. And that is where my heart is. In my county, protecting my people to the best of our ability," San Jacinto County Sheriff Greg Capers told reporters in an update Sunday afternoon.

Capers said that he was supposed to escort the widow of a constable who died about a year ago to a Texas police officers' memorial Sunday night but explained to her why he could not.

San Jacinto County Sheriff Greg Capers, left, wipes his eye as FBI Houston Special Agent in Charge James Smith speaks during a news conference, Sunday, April 30, 2023 in Cleveland, Texas. The search for suspect Francisco Oropesa is ongoing. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)

"My main intent and focus is 100% on capturing this suspect," Capers said. The sheriff also said he would not be at the vigil for the slain boy held at Northside Elementary in Cleveland. "Once again, I would love to be there, but I'm going to be here looking, searching for the suspect," Capers added.

Anyone with information that could lead to the arrest of Oropesa is asked to call 1-800-CALL-FBI with tips.

Young boys play outside their home as law enforcement continues to investigate the Cleveland, Texas, neighborhood Sunday, April 30, 2023, where a mass shooting left five people, including a child, dead two nights before. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)

MEXICAN NATIONAL WANTED IN DEADLY TEXAS SHOOTING OF 5 NEIGHBORS COULD BE ANYWHERE, SHERIFF SAYS

"We're asking everyone for your help so we can bring this suspect or this monster, I will call him to justice," Smith said at the same press conference Sunday. "Right now we just don't know because if we did we would have him in custody. We do not know where he is. We do not have any tips right now where he may be."

"I can pretty much guarantee you, he's contacted some of his friends. We just don't know which friends they are," Smith added. "That's what we need from the public, any type of information, because right now we're just we're running into dead ends."

Mass shooting survivor Wilson Garcia becomes emotional during a vigil for his son, Daniel Enrique Laso, Sunday, April 30, 2023, in Cleveland, Texas. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)

Capers told reporters that two women were found lying on top of and trying to protect three surviving children inside the home Friday night. The three children were loaded into an ambulance and brought to a hospital, where it was discovered they had not been physically injured. Four adults were found deceased at the scene: Sonia Argentina Guzman, 25; Diana Velazquez Alvarado, 21; Julisa Molina Rivera, 31; and Jose Jonathan Casarez, 18. Daniel Enrique Laso Guzman, age 8 or 9, was airlifted to a hospital, where he was declared deceased.

Another survivor, Wilson Garcia, whose wife Sonia and third-grade son were murdered, spoke to reporters at a vigil hosted Sunday afternoon at the school the boy had attended.

"My wife died, and my 9-year-old son died," Garcia said in Spanish. "What can I say, I am trying to stay strong for my children. My daughter kind of gets, understands things. It's hard when she comes to me and starts asking for her mom and her brother."

Wilson Garcia, center, holds a young girl during a vigil at Northside Elementary for his son Daniel Enrique Laso, Sunday, April 30, 2023, in Cleveland, Texas. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)

Garcia said another woman in the house told him to save himself.

"She told me to throw myself out of a window because my children were already without a mother," he said.

The deceased victims are said to have been from Honduras, according to local reports.

A source with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) told Fox News that Oropesa has been previously deported, has "multiple" illegal re-entries on his record, and was last encountered by ICE in 2016. A second source, within the Department of Homeland Security, told Fox News that Oropesa had been deported five times between 2009-2016.

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Oropesawas previously ordered removed by an immigration judge on March 16, 2009, and subsequently removed by ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) Houston to Mexico on March 17, 2009, a spokesperson for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) told Fox News. At an unknown time and location, Oropesa unlawfully reentered the United States, and was apprehended and removed several more times by ICE ERO in September 2009, January 2012, and July 2016.

Oropesa, who sometimes uses the additional hyphenated surname Perez-Torres, has also been previously convicted in Montgomery County, Texas, of driving while intoxicated in January 2012, and sentenced to serve time in jail, the spokesperson said. As a result of the April 29 incident, the Cold Spring Texas Sheriffs Office issued an arrest warrant for Oropesa for homicide. He is wanted by the San Jacinto County Sheriff's Office in connection to the suspected shooter incident in Cleveland, Texas.

Fox News's Bill Melugin contributed to this report.

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Cleveland, Texas, shooting suspect remains at large; $80K reward offered for illegal immigrant turned fugitive - Fox News

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) did not miss an opportunity to label the victims of his states most recent high-profile shooting illegal immigrants, making the tone-deaf characterization in a statement on Sunday.

Abbott also referred to the suspected gunman in the case, Francisco Oropesa, as someone who is in the country illegally as he announced a reward for information leading to his capture.

Oropesa, 38, is believed to have gunned down five people, including an eight-year-old boy, after he was asked to stop firing a weapon in his front yard last week.

Ive announced a $50K reward for info on the criminal who killed 5 illegal immigrants Friday, Abbott tweeted alongside the statement, in which he was quoted as saying, Our hearts go out to the families and loved ones of the five victims that were taken in this senseless act of violence.

I continue working with state and local officials to ensure they have all available resources to respond to this horrific crimes, he continued.

I thank the men and women in law enforcement who are tirelessly working to ensure this criminal is caught and brought to justice.

The governors statement drew immediate criticism, including from Star Trek actor George Takei, who has previously spoken out in favor of gun control.

This is despicable, he wrote. I would have thought bringing up the immigration status of the innocent victims of this senseless violence would be beneath even you. But I was wrong.

Abbotts offer of $50,000 comes in addition to the $80,000 reward currently being offered by the FBI, which admitted over the weekend that investigators do not know where [Oropesa] is.

We do not have any tips right now as to where he may be, said James Smith, the FBI special agent in charge in the Houston area. Right now, we have zero leads.

More than 200 law enforcement agents were actively searching for Oropesa on Sunday.

The five victims killed in the shooting have been identified as Sonia Guzman, 25; Diana Velazquez Alvarado, 21; Juliza Molina Rivera, 31; Jose Jonathan Casarez, 18; and Daniel Enrique Laso, 8. All were from Honduras, according to officials.

Link:
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott Calls Francisco Oropesa's Alleged Shooting Victims 'Illegal Immigrants' - The Daily Beast

WASHINGTON Texas Republicans on Monday seized on the immigration status of the man who authorities say shot and killed five people in SanJacinto County over the weekend, saying the shooting highlights the "devastating consequences" of illegal immigration.

Both U.S. Sens. John Cornyn and Ted Cruz used the shooting to hammer President Joe Biden's border policies, despite the fact that it is unclear when the suspect a Mexican citizen who has been deported four times last entered the U.S.

Immigrations and Customs Enforcement said Francisco Oropeza, 38, was most recently deported in 2016. Oropeza was also deported twice in 2009 and once in 2012.

"Im angry and everyone should be angry, because this will keep happening," Cruz said on his podcast. "We are dealing with day after day after day, crime, sexual assault, murders being committed by illegal aliens, over 6 million of whom Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have allowed to flood into this country with their open borders."

Numerous studies have found immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than U.S.-born citizens. A2020 study of Texas Department and Public Safety data, for instance, concluded that US-born citizens are twice as likely to be arrested for violent crimes, 2.5 times more likely to be arrested for drug crimes, and more than 4 times more likely to be arrested for property crimes.

IN-DEPTH: What to know about Francisco Oropeza, the alleged mass shooter in the Cleveland, Texas

"Contrary to public perception, we observe considerably lower felony arrest rates among undocumented immigrants compared to legal immigrants and native-born US citizens and find no evidence that undocumented criminality has increased in recent years," the study concluded.

A 2015 study by the non-partisan Migration Policy Institute found 93 percent of the 10.3 million people livingin the country without authorization had no criminal record. Three percent had a felony conviction and 4 percent had a serious misdemeanor.

Cornyn acknowledged in his speech on the Senate floor that "any attempt to frame immigrants in general as a threat to our country is completely devoid of facts and detached from reality."

But, he said, cases likeOropeza's "prove that there are devastating consequences when the Biden administration simply refuses to enforce the law, both at and inside of our borders."

Border arrests topped 2 million for the first time last year, but have fallen sincethe Biden administration rolledout a new plan to manage the border that includes directing asylum seekers to points of entry to make their claims.

Cornyn pointed to reporting in Fox News and other outlets that more than 1 million migrants have crossedthe border without being apprehended by border patrol during Biden's term.

"The so-called got-aways 1.2 million of them we have no inkling what they are up to, whether they are economic migrants, simply looking for a better life," Cornyn said. "My guess is probably not. My guess is they were probably either convicted criminals who knew they would not be allowed into the United States, or they were people who were transiting the United States, carrying drugs into the interior."

The comments of the Texas senators came afterGov. Greg Abbott sparked national outrage by referring to the five people killed in the Cleveland mass shooting as "illegal immigrants" in a tweet Sunday afternoon.

His office released a correction Monday afternoon after an immigrant rights activist shared on Twitter a photo of DianaAlvarado's ID card identifying her as a permanent resident of the United States.

"We've since learned that at least one of the victims may have been in the United States legally," said Abbott spokeswoman Renae Eze. "We regret if the information was incorrect and detracted from the important goal of finding and arresting the criminal."

ben.wermund@houstonchronicle.com

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Ted Cruz, John Cornyn join Texas lawmakers in blaming Cleveland killings on illegal immigration - Houston Chronicle

(April 27, 2023, Washington, D.C.) The following statement was issued by Dan Stein, president of the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) in response to the Department of Homeland Securitys plan to deal with an expected surge of illegal migration when Title 42ends.

For months, the Biden administration has been pressed to present a plan to deal with even greater surges of illegal immigration after Title 42 is formally ended on May 11. Today, the Department of Homeland Security finally rolled out a plan that amounts to the same failed policies that resulted in record levels of illegal immigration, only onsteroids.

Todays announcement by the Biden administration, billed as sweeping new actions to manage regional migration, does not even make a pretense that it is designed to prevent or deter even larger numbers of migrants from entering the country. Rather, it is a massive scheme to process migrants and disburse them around the country as quickly aspossible.

The effort to manage even greater levels of illegal migration further abuses parole authority to admit people who do not have visas and creates new regional processing centers that serve as assembly lines to move people into the United States. By the administrations own estimates, the number of migrants attempting to enter the country when Title 42 ends could reach as high as 18,000 a day or about 540,000 permonth.

DHSs plan claims that migrants who cross the border illegally will be subject to expedited removal, but that is a hollow threat that is designed to convince the American public that they are attempting to enforce immigration laws, which they have adamantly refused to do since the day President Biden took office. It is not a plan to deter illegal entry. In reality, it is an open invitation to foreign nationals to make specious claims for asylum, under which they will be allowed to enter the United States while they wait as long as ten years for a hearing on theircases.

The plan also includes expanded abuse of presidential parole authority to admit people from a growing number of countries who have family members in the United States. Parole is not a lawful pathway for immigrants. We already have thatits called avisa.

The DHS plan amounts to a massive and illegal scheme designed to accommodate unlimited numbers of migrants in defiance of the departments statutory obligation to deter and prevent illegal immigration. It is the same failed strategy that has already resulted in more than 7 million illegal entries in just the first 26 months of this administration. Expanding these policies, as the DHS plan proposes, will do irreparable damage to the country that will be felt for generations tocome.

Contact: Ron Kovach, 202-328-7004 orrkovach@fairus.org.

Read more:
As Title 42 Ends, DHS Plans to Accommodate Expected Surge of ... - Federation for American Immigration Reform

Opinion

Sunaks plan is cruel and unworkable, but at the very least there may be concessions on victims of trafficking and children

Thu 27 Apr 2023 07.42 EDT

It is not only very telling but also grimly ironic how, over the course of a week, the government has had to respond to the crisis in Sudan and at the same time explain what its flagship asylum bill will mean.

Defence secretary Ben Wallace told the Commons defence select committee on Tuesday that the conflict could quickly become a humanitarian crisis. The next day at prime ministers questions, ahead of the third reading of the illegal migration bill, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak refused to say whether a child fleeing the conflict would be deported if they arrived in Britain on a small boat from France. Instead, he dodged the question and talked about how, in the last five years, other vulnerable children have been welcomed to the UK as refugees.

A few hours before, the home secretary, Suella Braverman, stated more pointedly that people fleeing Sudan would not be allowed to apply for asylum in the UK, nor would the government put in place a safe route for them to reach the country.

That, of course, is the reality of the illegal immigration bill. It slams Britains door in the face of those who have had no choice but to take dangerous journeys to reach safety. The UNHCR has named it for what it is: an asylum ban extinguishing the right to seek refugee protection in the United Kingdom. Its an indiscriminate approach that will see many thousands of refugees unfairly turned away. More than three-quarters of asylum claims assessed last year were found to be valid. In future, all of those will be automatically rejected. Men, women and children who could be you or me, if we were Sudanese, Afghan or Iranian.

The government appears to be cocksure about doing the right thing. But not necessarily so sure that it will stop the boats coming across the Channel. It is a complicated problem, where theres no single, simple solution that will fix it, Sunak has said, admitting it wont happen overnight. Conservative MPs privately are not only sceptical but doubtful that without far more safe routes, the arrivals will diminish. They see those routes as vital in providing an alternative to the dangerous journeys controlled by people smugglers.

No 10 gave a nod to this by accepting an amendment to the bill from Tim Loughton, Conservative MP for East Worthing and Shoreham, that states that plans to provide additional routes must be brought forward within six months of the bill passing. It remains to be seen if this will actually result in any meaningful expansion of safe routes, such as the provision of family reunion visas, which have declined by 40% compared with the pre-Covid level in 2019.

There are many senior Tory MPs who still remain very uneasy about what the bill means for both victims of modern slavery and children separated from their families seeking asylum. Theresa May is particularly angry about the legislation effectively dismantling the modern slavery provisions she brought in as home secretary. She is right that far more people, including vulnerable women and girls, will be left in slavery in the UK as a result. The former prime minister wasnt bought off by No 10s attempt to table an amendment that only tinkered with the modern slavery provisions in the bill, lambasting it as a slap in the face for those who care about the victims of modern slavery and human trafficking.

And despite calls to remove all separated children from the provisions of the bill by the childrens commissioner and senior Tories such as the former justice secretary, Robert Buckland, the government adamantly insists they need to be included to ensure what it believes will be a sufficient deterrent effect.

Its worth remembering that when she was home secretary, Priti Patel chose to exempt children from new legal provisions she introduced that mean any asylum claim by a person who has travelled through a so-called safe third country is inadmissible. The word in Westminster is that she is very uncomfortable with imposing an asylum ban on unaccompanied children, which speaks volumes about the extremity of the governments approach.

The House of Lords is expected to cause considerable unease for the government and will no doubt seek to slice and dice the bill into something it sees as far more palatable. Multiple government defeats are likely. But the prime minister wants the bill in law for when parliament rises in July for summer recess. There are likely to be some concessions, for instance, over time limits on the use of detention for children and families and on the proposed changes to the protections and support for victims of modern slavery.

Dont expect the meat of the legislation to change, though. Stopping the boats is a top priority for Sunak, and he sees the asylum bill as a critical part of the equation. It is, however, a high-risk political strategy, not least given the fact that it plays up expectations when the chances of it actually delivering an end to Channel crossings are low.

An analysis by the Refugee Council has found that, in the first three years of the legislation coming into effect, up to 190,000 people will have had their asylum claims deemed inadmissible but wont have been removed. They will be left destitute, unable to work, and reliant on Home Office support and accommodation indefinitely. This will come at a huge cost about 9bn will be spent over three years on locking up refugees in detention centres and accommodating people who cant be removed to other countries.

Its difficult to see how the bill will do anything to actually stop the boats; instead it will undoubtedly make matters much worse, causing further human misery. The conflict in Sudan graphically illustrates that addressing global refugee movements requires the government to join forces with other western nations and the UN to focus on increasing foreign aid and improving conflict resolution. Neither is happening. Without addressing the so-called push factors, the numbers seeking safety in the UK and Europe will not reduce, but are likely to increase.

As the government ramps up its rhetoric against people seeking asylum, we must not forget there are other ways to navigate what is undoubtedly a global challenge. Instead, the UK is resorting to divisive, unfair and inhumane laws that will indiscriminately lock up men, women and children and seek to kick them out of the UK.

Enver Solomon is chief executive of the Refugee Council

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.

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Multiple government defeats are likely when the illegal immigration bill heads to the Lords - The Guardian