(The Center Square) – As the Democratic-led Houston City Council continues to defy working with federal immigration officials, another Venezuelan stands accused of committing murder in Houston, bludgeoning a carpenter to death with a sledgehammer.
As the Houston City Council considers revising an ordinance on Wednesday that restricts Houston Police Department officers from cooperating with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers, the city continues to grapple with illegal foreign national crime that is impacting minority residents.
Gov. Greg Abbott said if the city council didn’t rescind its anti-ICE order, there would be additional consequences to the city losing more than $100 million in grant funding. His office rescinded the funds after the ordinance was passed, arguing it violated the terms of the grant agreement, The Center Square reported. Attorney General Ken Paxton also sued the city arguing the ordinance violates state law.
Since then, the governor and mayor have been engaged in constructive conversations and the mayor has proposed a revised ordinance.
Democratic City Council members still continue to oppose ICE even after another Venezuelan illegally in the country is accused of committing another high-profile murder in Houston. This time, 19-year-old Josue Abraham Chirino-Leonice is charged in the beating death of a carpenter, Juan Antonio Salinas Leija, as they were reportedly renovating a home in the Northgate Crossing community of Spring.
Chirino-Leonice was arrested days after the crime, located roughly an hour away in Pasadena. Officers apprehended him driving the victim’s vehicle, authorities said. He was charged with murder and booked in the Harris County Jail. ICE then lodged a detainer request.
“This criminal illegal alien — who never should have been allowed into the country in the first place — is accused of savagely beating a co-worker to death with a sledgehammer and leaving him to die in a house they were renovating together,” ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations Houston acting Field Office Director Gabriel Martinez said. “Our officers are working tirelessly to restore integrity to our nation’s immigration system to bring an end to the carnage and unnecessary suffering in this country that’s caused by criminal illegal aliens, and we won’t rest until we’ve accomplished that mission.”
In response, Abbott again chastised city council members saying, “Refusing to collaborate with federal immigration officials is deadly. Houstonians shouldn’t have to wait until an illegal immigrant roaming their streets kills somebody before he is detained & turned over to ICE. City Council must choose – vote for their citizens, or the criminals who kill them.”
Chirino-Leonice had a criminal history prior to being released into the country by the Biden administration. He was first arrested by Border Patrol in November 2023, ICE said.
At the height of the border crisis, the Biden administration created a new parole program enabling the greatest number of Venezuelans to illegally enter the country in U.S. history of more than one million, The Center Square exclusively reported.
The Trump administration, which has reversed Biden administration border policies, “is committed to restoring common sense and sanity to our nation’s immigration system,” ICE said. Federal immigration authorities “will not gamble with the safety of Americans and our national security – as previous administrations have done – by allowing murderers, child rapists, gang members and other dangerous criminal illegal aliens to remain in our communities unvetted and unchecked,” it said.
The crime appears to continue a pattern of Venezuelans allegedly murdering minorities, and adult men committing crimes after they illegally entered the country as minors.
Two Venezuelan men illegally in the country stand accused of raping and strangled to death a 12-year-old Hispanic girl, Jocelyn Nungaray, in June 2024 and leaving her body in a bayou. They were charged with capital murder with the prosecutor seeking the death penalty, The Center Square reported.
A 41-year-old Venezuelan in the country illegally, also with a criminal record, is charged with killing a 7-year-old Black girl, Ivory Smith, in December 2024 while driving drunk in northeast Harris County, The Center Square reported.
In November, ICE arrested a Salvadoran man in the Energy Corridor who’d been wanted by the HPD since 2023. He was wanted on charges of aggravated sexual assault and kidnapping of a 22-year-old woman whose head was bashed with a tire iron.
He illegally entered the U.S. in 2015 when he was 14 as an unaccompanied minor and an immigration judge ordered his removal in 2016, which didn’t happen, according to ICE records. It would take nearly 10 years for him to be found and arrested, The Center Square reported.
ICE Houston officers are making major arrests of violent criminals. In just a few months during the federal government shutdown last fall, they arrested 3,600 violent offenders, including gang members and fugitives. They are also continuing to apprehend child rapists and smugglers and Tren de Aragua and South American Theft Group members, The Center Square reported.
The terrorist and transnational criminal organization members are involved in coordinated ATM theft, extortion, kidnapping, sex trafficking, murder and other violent crimes, law enforcement officers have found. Abbott has directed targeted law enforcement efforts to “eradicate TdA from Texas” as well as transnational crime in Houston and statewide.
