ICE’s Washington, D.C., Enforcement and Removal Operations office announced the arrest of 27-year-old Salvadoran national Jorge Armando Melendez-Gonzalez in Fairfax County. This action followed local officials’ decision not to honor immigration detainers, according to a press release.
According to federal officials, ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) officers apprehended Melendez-Gonzalez on October 24, 2025, after his release from the Fairfax County Adult Detention Center. He has been arrested ten times between 2018 and 2025 and charged with 19 crimes, including malicious shooting, unlawful wounding, grand larceny, and assault on a family member. ICE said that Fairfax County’s refusal to honor two immigration detainers—filed in August 2023 and July 2025—resulted in the re-release of what they described as a “violent criminal alien” back into the community before federal officers reapprehended him.
ICE Washington Field Office Director Russell Hott said that Melendez-Gonzalez exemplifies “the kind of criminal alien offender that ICE detainers protect the members of our communities against.” Hott emphasized that sanctuary jurisdictions like Fairfax County “only endanger the people they purport to protect” when they refuse to honor federal immigration holds. The agency reiterated its commitment to “arresting and removing such criminal alien offenders” to safeguard Virginia and Washington, D.C. communities.
Records from the U.S. Department of Justice’s Executive Office for Immigration Review indicate that Melendez-Gonzalez was initially arrested by U.S. Border Patrol after illegally entering the country on June 22, 2015. An immigration judge ordered his removal to El Salvador on October 4, 2016; however, he failed to comply with this order and remained in the United States. ICE documentation notes that his repeated criminal offenses led to multiple detainers being filed and ignored by local officials before federal agents took him back into custody in October 2025.
The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency was established in 2003 under the Department of Homeland Security. It conducts immigration law enforcement through its Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) and Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) divisions. The ERO Washington Field Office oversees operations in the District of Columbia and Virginia, focusing on apprehending and deporting criminal noncitizens and fugitives. ICE maintains a tip line (1-866-DHS-2-ICE) along with digital reporting tools for public assistance in providing information about criminal alien activity.
