HOUSTON — U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) deported Ariel Nunez Figueroa, a 30-year-old Mexican national, to Mexico on Wednesday. Nunez was wanted for kidnapping and organized crime in connection with the 2014 disappearance and murder of 43 students from the Ayotzinapa Teachers’ College.
ICE transferred Nunez from the Montgomery Processing Center in Conroe, Texas, to the Juarez-Lincoln Bridge Port of Entry in Laredo, Texas, where he was handed over to Mexican authorities.
“For nearly eleven years, this foreign fugitive evaded authorities while the family and friends of those 43 students who were brutally murdered patiently awaited justice for their loved ones,” said ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations Houston Field Office Director Bret Bradford.
The Ayotzinapa case, one of Mexico’s most infamous human rights tragedies, involved the abduction and presumed killing of students in Iguala, Guerrero, allegedly by corrupt officials and criminal groups.