Illegal immigrant arrested in Florida for kidnapping and sexually abusing a child, given years-long court date

An illegal immigrant accused of sex crimes has been granted a date before an immigration judge years after crossing the border illegally. This shows how the backlog in the courts may be allowing criminal aliens to remain in the country.

A 20-year-old Guatemalan national was arrested on child abduction and sexual assault charges, the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office said Monday. Marvin Perez Lopez is accused of kidnapping and raping an 11-year-old girl until the girl’s mother intervened.

As the Tampa Free Press reported, Perez Lopez allegedly grabbed the 11-year-old by the hand, took her into his van and forced himself on her despite her repeated requests to stop. The child’s mother began looking for her when she then noticed the van near the residence containing both the victim and Perez Lopez.

Related: Florida AG Ashley Moody blasts Biden after illegal alien abduction, sexually assaults 13-year-old child

The mother began banging on the van and screaming, prompting the Guatemalan man to flee the scene. She later called police and he was taken into local custody, where he is being held without bail.

Local authorities confirmed that Perez Lopez entered the United States illegally earlier this year.

“Through the investigation, investigators learned that Perez Lopez left Guatemala in early January, traveled through Mexico, turned himself in to Border Patrol, received a court date sometime in 2027 and was released,” the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office said in their Announcement. “He found his way to Florida at the end of January 2024.”

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Read: Panama elects president, vows to close key routes to the US used by over half a million migrants

That Perez Lopez entered in January but was assigned a court date three years in the future shows that the current border crisis is creating a significant backlog in the immigration court system.

Data compiled by Syracuse’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) found that the U.S. immigration court backlog exceeded 3 million pending cases in November – a new record for the court system. In 2022, the backlog of cases was 2 million, meaning the backlog increased by one million cases in just 12 months. TRAC concluded that immigration judges currently have an average of about 4,500 cases pending per year.

“If everyone with a pending immigration case were brought together, it would be larger than the population of Chicago, the third largest city in the United States,” the study said. “In fact, the number of immigrants waiting in the court’s backlog now exceeds the population of many states.”

The backlog in court is not surprising given the record-breaking encounters at the U.S.-Mexico border, which Perez Lopez crossed several months earlier.

Read: More Chinese illegal migrants arrested at southern border in two days than in all of 2021: REPORT

Since the start of the Biden administration, there have been at least six million encounters at the southern border, placing a strain on the U.S. immigration court system and federal immigration authorities.

First published by Daily Caller News Foundation.

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