Mexican Fugitive Wanted for 2014 Murder of 43 Students Deported by ICE

HOUSTON, Texas — U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers arrested and deported a Mexican illegal alien who is wanted in his home country for the murders of 43 college students in 2014. Officers turned the fugitive alien over to Mexican authorities at the Juarez-Lincoln Port of Entry in Laredo, Texas.

In a statement from ICE officials late last week, Fugitive Operations officers assigned to the Houston Field Office received a notification from Interpol that 30-year-old Ariel Nunez Figueroa may have been illegally residing in the Houston area. The information disclosed the man was wanted in Mexico in connection to the murders of 43 students of the Ayotzinapa Teachers’ College in September 2014.

Breitbart Texas reported extensively on the murders of the 43 students that occurred in Ayotzinapa, Guerrero, in 2014 and the subsequent cover-up by Mexican officials.

In December 2014, Breitbart reported:

The disappearance of forty-three Mexican college students on September 26^th has led to a period of protests from parents who have had enough. On that night, uniformed police officers in the city of Igualá opened fire on five busses of students from the Rural Teachers College in Ayotzinapa and one bus carrying a local soccer team. The police and three unidentified gunmen killed six people, wounded more than twenty and “disappeared” forty-three students.

The day after the shooting, state police moved in and arrested twenty-two Igualá police officers who had been identified by surviving students. The mayor and his wife, along with the town’s police chief, went into hiding. However, President Peña Nieto cancelled a previously planned trip to the state of Guerrero leaving people with the impression the killings and disappearances were not his concern. He added fuel to the fire when he later told a reporter the “state government must assume its own responsibility to face what’s happening.”

In the following weeks, protests grew in numbers and intensity. Parents and students joined together to block highways and march through cities. They smashed windows of and, according to an article by Ildefonso Ortiz on Breitbart Texas, set fire to the Guerrero state congress building and the governor’s offices. Protests spread to other cities across the country. This led to the October 23^rd resignation of Governor Aguirre. Parents eventually met with President Peña Nieto and told him to find their children or follow Gov. Aguirre’s lead and resign.

“For nearly eleven years, this foreign fugitive evaded authorities while the family and friends of those 43 students who were brutally murdered patiently awaited justice for their loved ones,” said ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations Houston Field Office Director Bret Bradford. “Thanks to outstanding teamwork by ICE, Interpol and the U.S. Embassy in Mexico, we were able to successfully track him down and remove him to Mexico to face prosecution for his alleged crimes.”

ICE officials did not expound on Nunez’s role in the murders of the 43 students. Fugitive Operations officers arrested the Mexican national on September 3, 2024. An immigration judge ordered his removal from the United States on January 22.