U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in Houston has confirmed one arrest that was made in the raid that took place on Monday, Feb. 24, in the Colony Ridge communities south of Plum Grove.
Florentin Chevez-Luna, a Salvadoran national who was previously deported three times, was arrested under a criminal warrant alleging repeated sexual abuse of a minor spanning from November 2008 to November 2016, according to an ICE-Houston spokesperson.
In a statement to Bluebonnet News, a spokesperson for ICE-Houston said, “U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement conducts routine, daily enforcement alongside our federal, state and local law enforcement partners throughout the Houston community to bolster public safety, national security, and border security.”
The spokesperson went on to say that the arrest of Chevez-Luna is one that ICE-Houston chose to highlight and should in no way imply that other arrests were or were not made on Monday. The spokesperson referred Bluebonnet News to the Department of Homeland Security for more information. Bluebonnet News has received information suggesting that dozens of people were taken into custody on Monday, though the spokesperson could not confirm these numbers.
According to the ICE statement, the arrest of Chevez-Luna took place within Plum Grove, just north of the Colony Ridge communities. Colony Ridge is a rapidly expanding development in Liberty County, approximately 30 miles northeast of Houston and 15 miles south of Cleveland. The development encompasses several subdivisions over a 33,000-acre area.
The rapid growth of the community has caused some major issues for Cleveland ISD with a booming student population that has prompted construction of several new campuses and several failed attempts to pass additional bonds for more campuses. Over the last decade, Cleveland ISD has seen a surge of 211 percent in student enrollment.
Current estimates suggest a population in Colony Ridge nearing 40,000 residents, predominantly of Latino descent.