The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) issued a migration detention order against Daniel Pino Alfonso, a Cuban citizen who was arrested on March 3 in Spring Hill, Tennessee, accused of stealing shoes worth approximately $6,000 and carrying $3,400 in cash of suspicious origin.
ICE announced the case this Saturday through its official account on the social media platform X, where it reported that Pino Alfonso illegally entered the United States in 2022 and that the agency will proceed to take him into custody to initiate deportation proceedings.
The Cuban was detained along with his accomplice Yadian Pérez López, 38 years old, also holding a Florida driver's license, as part of what authorities described as a couple of criminals dedicated to organized retail theft.
Officers from the crime suppression unit of the Spring Hill police observed the two men entering and exiting a Ross store multiple times carrying large amounts of merchandise, and noted that one of them was using a specialized tool to cut the anti-theft devices.
Upon inspecting the truck they were traveling in, with out-of-state plates, the agents found piles of stolen shoes, cut price tags on the floor, and 34 one-hundred-dollar bills in the wallet of one of the suspects.
An officer who inspected the vehicle commented during the recording of his body camera: "This isn't just about this Ross, I'm sure they attacked other Rosses on the way here."
Both suspects were charged under Tennessee's retail organized crime law, which allows for enhanced charges when two or more individuals act in coordination to commit theft in commercial establishments.
The immigration detention order was issued solely against Pino Alfonso, who remains incarcerated in the county jail while ICE proceeds with the steps for his deportation.
The case is set against the backdrop of intensified ICE operations under the Trump administration, which prioritized the detention of undocumented immigrants with criminal records.
Tennessee has 63 agreements under the 287(g) program for collaboration between local forces and ICE, which represents a 950% increase in the first year of the second presidential term and allows for the automatic activation of immigration hold orders when a detainee is admitted to a local jail.
In recent weeks, ICE has shared on its social media several similar cases of Cubans arrested in different states, including one in New Orleans with a history of theft and fraud, and another in Boston with an active deportation order since 2001.
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