Thread: Honduran Came as Unaccompanied Minor, Deported in 2010 | Erik Eduardo Zavala-Flores

Honduran Came as Unaccompanied Minor, Ordered Deported in 2010, Now Arrested for Texas Murder



by Bob Price 22 Dec 2024

HOUSTON, Texas — A Honduran migrant who entered the U.S. as an unaccompanied minor now faces a murder charge in Harris County, Texas. The man was ordered removed from the U.S. by an immigration judge in 2010 after failing to show up for scheduled hearings, according to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials.

The Gulf Coast Violent Offenders Task Force arrested 33-year-old Alex Mejia-Pineda in Huntsville, Texas, last week on a charge that he participated in the murder of Erik Eduardo Zavala-Flores, 28, according to Fox 26 Houston.

Prosecutors say Mejia-Pineda and co-defendant Alex Herrera Calderon, a 24-year-old U.S. citizen, shot Zavala-Flores in the parking lot of a bar in northeast Houston. Police found the victim’s body in a burned truck in San Jacinto County.

A spokesman for ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) in Houston told Breitbart Texas that Mejia-Pineda entered the U.S. illegally as an unaccompanied minor. In 2010, an immigration judge under the Obama-Biden administration ordered the then 19-year-old Honduran man deported. Mejia-Pineda had no further contact with law enforcement until his arrest last week.

ERO officers joined with the Gulf Coast Violent Offenders Task Force and the Walker County Sheriff’s Office to take the Honduran fugitive into custody on December 16.

Mejia-Pineda and Calderon are charged with the murder of Zavala-Flores. Mejia-Pineda is being held on a bond of $500,000. ERO officers placed an immigration detainer on the suspect to ensure he could not released on bond. Court records obtained by Breitbart Texas indicate his next court appearance is scheduled for February 13, 2025, in the 262nd Criminal District Court, Judge Lori Gray presiding.

Court records show that Co-defendant Calderon’s bond is set at $100,000. His next court date is January 16, 2025, in the same court.

https://www.breitbart.com/border/202...murder-charge/