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Reinier Rodríguez-Hernández, a Cuban citizen who illegally entered the United States through Del Rio, Texas, was arrested by agents of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in Albuquerque, New Mexico, after local authorities refused to comply with a detention order issued by the federal agency.
According to the official post by ICE on their social media, on May 22, the Albuquerque Police arrested Rodríguez-Hernández along with another suspect identified as Amaury Morán Martínez, as part of an investigation into a fuel theft scheme involving credit card cloning devices.
Rodríguez-Hernández faces three charges of credit card fraud and one charge of theft.
After that arrest, ICE immediately issued a detainer order to the Metropolitan Detention Center of Bernalillo County, the only sanctuary jurisdiction in the state of New Mexico.
The authorities of the facility refused to honor the request and released the detainee once their local process was completed.
"Due to local officials from the only sanctuary jurisdiction in New Mexico refusing to honor the detainer order, ICE had to deploy a team to the neighborhood and arrest him in the community," the federal agency stated in its official communication.
The ICE Fugitive Operations team located Rodríguez-Hernández and arrested him directly in public, an operation that the agency photographed and shared on its digital platforms as a warning message.
Journalist Yusnaby Pérez summarized the scope of the case on his social media: "ICE plastered the face of Reinier Rodríguez Hernández all over the internet, and the message is quickly understood: don't come to steal."
Rodríguez-Hernández remains in immigration custody while his court proceedings continue, and deportation is among the possible outcomes of his legal situation.
The case illustrates the growing tension between the federal administration and sanctuary jurisdictions. The federal government has already sued the state of New Mexico and the city of Albuquerque for their immigration policies, and in May the state was attempting to pass legislation to further limit cooperation with ICE.
ICE has adopted an aggressive communication strategy by publishing photographs of arrests of immigrants with criminal records to send deterrent messages, especially in cases where local authorities refuse to cooperate with immigration detention orders.
In the broader context of the deportations of Cubans from the United States, between January and May 2026, 18 flights were completed with at least 612 citizens of the island returned to Cuba, a figure that reflects the acceleration of migratory operations during the second term of the Trump administration.
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