Houston ICE deports two Mexico homicide fugitives

Houston immigration officers deported two men wanted for homicide in Mexico, putting the city’s ICE office at the center of another cross-border fugitive case. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement identified them as Agustin Morales-Renteria and Juan Becerra Ruiz, both 24, and said Houston officers escorted them from the Montgomery Processing Center in Conroe before their removal.

The case ran through Houston because the city serves as a federal enforcement node for Southeast Texas and the wider region, with the Montgomery Processing Center feeding into that local detention-and-transfer network. In practical terms, the removal did not happen at the border alone. It moved through a Houston-area facility and Houston-based officers before ending with the men being sent out of the United States.

The homicide warrants in Mexico gave the deportation a public-safety dimension, and it also showed how U.S. immigration enforcement can intersect with foreign criminal investigations. Houston ICE handled the final domestic step, while the underlying allegations remained rooted in Mexico’s homicide cases.

ICE was established in March 2003 and has removed hundreds of thousands of noncitizens, including high-profile fugitives. The Houston case fits that long-running enforcement pattern, where local field offices move people through detention facilities and into removals tied to serious crimes.

Archived Houston ICE releases show the office has handled similar homicide-related removals before, including earlier cases involving Mexican fugitives wanted for homicide.