A Honduran national who was convicted of a crime in Maryland was taken into custody by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents on May 22. 

Alex Yonatan Flores-Arce, 20, entered the U.S. illegally, according to ICE. 

U.S. Border Patrol encountered him near El Paso, Texas, in March 2019, where he was served with a notice to appear. 

Howard County fails to honor ICE detainer 

In announcing Flores-Arce’s arrest, ICE also accused Howard County of ignoring a request to keep him detained. Immigration officials said Flores-Arce was released back into the community twice. 

Flores-Arce was arrested in October 2024 and charged with rape in Howard County. He was found guilty in April and sentenced to 15 years in prison and five years of probation.

ICE said they submitted an immigration detainer for Flores-Arce on January 13 to the Howard County Department of Corrections. 

An immigration detainer is a request that ICE submits to state or local law enforcement, asking them to hold a person for up to 48 hours and send a notification before releasing a suspect. It allows federal immigration officials time to take a person into custody.

According to ICE, the department did not honor the detainer and instead released Flores-Arce from custody on May 5. 

On May 8, Flores-Arce was arrested for violating his probation. He was arrested by ICE as he left the detention center, officials said. 

“The decision by Howard County Detention Center to ignore our immigration detainer and release a removable individual with an egregious criminal history undermines public safety and put Maryland communities at risk,” ICE Baltimore acting Field Office Director Nikita Baker said.

Flores-Arce has a final administrative removal order and remains in ICE’s custody. 

Howard County designated as sanctuary jurisdiction 

Howard County was among eight Maryland counties that the Trump administration recently designated as sanctuary jurisdictions.

The designation came after an executive order from the President on April 28 required the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to share a list of states, cities and counties that “obstruct the enforcement of Federal immigration laws.” 

According to the administration, sanctuary jurisdictions are locations that “deliberately and shamefully” ignore federal immigration laws.

“Sanctuary cities protect dangerous criminal aliens from facing consequences and put law enforcement in peril,” DHS said. 

According to ICE Baltimore officials, Flores-Arce’s arrest was not the first time that Howard County failed to honor an immigration detainer. 

“This failure is not an isolated incident, but part of a concerning pattern we see all too often,” Baker said in a statement. “…Working together with local jurisdictions is the only way to keep our neighborhoods safe and uphold the rule of law.”

Human remains found in the shell of a scorched car have led to a chilling mystery in a quaint waterfront Maryland town, according to police. 

The disturbing discovery was made Saturday night, police said, after a motorist called 911 to report a car on fire outside the Tropic Bay Aquatic Garden Center in Davidsonville, Md., a tony community about 40 minutes outside the nation’s capital. 

When firefighters arrived, they found a car engulfed in flames. Once they extinguished the blaze, they discovered a scorched human body in the passenger side of the car, police said. 

Cops are treating the car fire as a suspicious death investigation. What was left of the body was taken to the medical examiner for an autopsy and identification.

“That certainly changed our investigation from what appeared to be an initial vehicle fire to a suspicious death investigation,” Anne Arundel County police spokesperson Justin Mulcahy told WJZ News. “That’s where we’re at right now.”

The gruesome discovery shocked residents of the small and idyllic waterfront town, where the median sales price of a home is almost $1 million, and the average income is $223,135.

“My wife called and asked me if I heard what happened. I was just shocked,” local Pete Best told WJZ. “It doesn’t seem like the kind of thing that would happen in a small town.”  

Best told the outlet that he was playing a gig next door to Tropic Bay at the time of the discovery.

“These kinds of things happen on TV, and then you go, ‘Wow, I can’t believe it’s right around the corner,’” Best said. “It kind of puts you on your heels a little bit for sure.”

The Anne Arundel County Fire and Explosives Investigations Unit is investigating the cause of the fire as detectives work to identify the victim – and determine how they ended up in the torched car, according to reports. 

Regular customers of Tropic Bay, which specializes in koi fish and water features, were surprised to find it closed the following morning and surrounded with yellow police tape, according to WBAL. 

The parking lot, with a sign that reads  “America’s Premiere Aquatic Garden Center,” was still littered with toasted car parts from what WBAL called a recent model Ford. 

Customers told the station that the owner never closed on the weekend since that was his busiest time. They worried about the animals inside the store and whether they were getting fed and cared for. 

Mulcahy told WJZ that he is counting on witnesses or surveillance video to help solve the mystery.

“We’re going to talk to anybody who may have frequented that business,” Mulcahy said. “Certainly, any surveillance footage would be part of the investigation as well, or anything we can gather to assist our case right now.”