In a recent turn of legal proceedings, 49-year-old Guatemalan citizen Ruben Urizar-Beteta has entered a guilty plea for unlawfully re-entering the United States after a prior deportation, as announced by Acting U.S. Attorney Michael M. Simpson; Urizar-Beteta had initially been removed from the U.S. on September 30, 2014, but re-entered the country before March 23, court records indicate.
Following his plea, Urizar-Beteta received a sentence of 30 months unsupervised probation and was ordered to pay a $100 special assessment fee, this according to a statement from the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Louisiana; the case against Urizar-Beteta was spearheaded by the United States Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), reflecting an increased focus on immigration enforcement and the collaboration between various government agencies, Operation Take Back America is an initiative from the Department of Justice focusing on the crackdown on illegal immigration and the dismantling of cartels and transnational criminal organizations (TCOs), as the operation also aims to safeguard communities from violence.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Irene González of the General Crimes Unit managed the prosecution of the case, which is a part of the broader Operation Take Back America; the operation, with its vast objectives, brings together resources from the Department's Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces (OCDETFs) and Project Safe Neighborhood (PSN) to address the various threats associated with illegal immigration and organized crime.
Acting U.S. Attorney Simpson, in his praise for Homeland Security and ICE's investigative work, underscored the commitment to addressing illegal immigration as a part of the broader thrust of Operation Take Back America, which brings to the forefront the federal resolve to repel what the Department of Justice describes as "the invasion of illegal immigration," the protection of American communities is iterated as a key goal of these efforts, dovetailing with the mission to obliterate cartels and criminal networks that transcend borders.
