An illegal immigrant from Honduras who was allowed into the United States after crossing the southern border during the Biden administration pled guilty in Iowa to sexually assaulting a 12-year-old girl.
According to court documents obtained first by the Washington Examiner, Junior Manuel Dubon Benitez, 18, was detained on February 14 on suspicion of “sexual abuse upon Jane Doe a 12-year-oldĀ child” at a residence in Waterloo, Iowa, days earlier. According to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement official, Dubon Benitez, a Honduran citizen, illegally entered the United States as a 16-year-old in April 2022 near Hidalgo, Texas.
The case is the most recent example of what former President Donald Trump has dubbed “Biden migrant crime,” which refers to crimes committed by immigrants who were let into the country after arriving illegally during the Biden-era border crisis.
Federal law enforcement has faced nearly 10 million non-US individuals attempting to enter the country in the more than 40 months since President Joe Biden entered office, more than at any previous time in history. Dubon Benitez was charged with second-degree sexual assault but agreed to a plea agreement for third-degree sexual abuse, according to court documents acquired by the Washington Examiner.
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On May 14, he pleaded guilty in Iowa District Court for Black Hawk County. The final verdict was put into the record on June 7.
Judge Melissa Anderson-Seeber will sentence Dubon Benitez in the following weeks. He faces up to ten years in state jail.
Dubon Benitez is being held by the Iowa Department of Corrections until his sentencing. ICE has filed a detainer with the state, requesting that Dubon Benitez not be released after serving his term but be immediately turned over to the federal agency for deportation proceedings.
ICE did not specify whether Dubon Benitez entered with a parent or as an unaccompanied minor who was placed with an adult in the United States by the Department of Health and Human Services.
His relationship with the victim, whose identity is shielded because to her age, was not revealed in court records. The county attorney refuses to disclose any additional information beyond what was gleaned from the court records.
“I’m saddened and disgusted to hear that a young Iowan has suffered the awful tragedy of sexual assault,” Chuck Grassley (R), Iowa’s senior senator, said in a statement to the Washington Examiner. “The Biden administration ought to wake up to the crisis they’ve created and begin enforcing our nation’s immigration laws.”
“Meanwhile, I’ll continue to lead congressional oversight of the federal programs used to shuffle illegal immigrants, including unaccompanied minors, into our country,” according to him. “By failing to enforce appropriate safeguards and vetting measures, the Biden administration is enabling bad actors to run rampant.”
On Tuesday, New York police detained a 25-year-old Ecuadorian male in connection with the rape of a 13-year-old girl in the middle of the day at a Queens Park washingtonexaminer stated.
The suspect, Christian Geovanny Inga-Landi, is thought to have approached a boy and girl at the park and attacked the girl with a machete.