ICE Deports Honduran Woman Wanted on Human Trafficking Charge

(RepublicanReport.org) – Since 2019, Honduran authorities have been looking for Dora Patricia Flores Canales, a woman accused of aggravated human trafficking. According to the Office of the Public Ministry in Tegucigalpa, the Unit Against Human Trafficking, Commercial Sexual Exploitation, and Illicit Trafficking in Persons filed a petition for the arrest, accusing Canales of sexually exploiting a young woman. She was finally captured and deported back to her country.

On July 1, the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) announced that the Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) Harlingen removed Flores from the US and sent her to Honduras on June 26. According to the announcement, Flores illegally entered the United States at or near Eagle Pass in Texas in November 2023. US Border Patrol (BP) swiftly arrested her, serving her with a removal notice. Three months later, BP transferred her to ERO San Antonio, who then sent her to ERO Harlingen.

Later that same month, the ICE assistant attache confirmed that Flores had an outstanding warrant for sex trafficking and started the procedure to have her removed from the country. On June 26, four months after the designation, ERO Harlingen removed her from the country and turned her over to local authorities in Honduras.

The details of Flores’ alleged crime center around the victim, a young woman. The suspect reportedly told the woman that she would cover her travel expenses to relocate from Honduras to Mexico, offering the victim a job at her bar. But when the young woman arrived, Flores allegedly told her that her salary would depend on how many drinks she sold. She was also apparently told that she could charge men a certain amount of money to have sex with her. If the woman didn’t cooperate, Flores apparently threatened to turn her over to immigration authorities.

After Flores’ removal, ERO Harlingen Field Office Director Miguel Vergara vowed to continue “safeguard[ing] the American public” against “those who pose a significant threat.”

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