PORTLAND — A Mexican man convicted of a 2018 kidnapping was removed from the country on Tuesday, Dec. 29, 2020, according to a press release from U. S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Gerardo Muniz-Vazquez, 28, was convicted on Oct. 4, 2018, in the Umatilla County Circuit Court for kidnapping and assault, and sentenced to 34 months confinement.

ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations officers encountered Muniz-Vazquez at the Oregon Department of Corrections a month after Muniz-Vazquez’s conviction and lodged an immigration detainer with the jail.

ICE lodges immigration detainers on individuals, such as Muniz-Vazquez, who have been arrested on local criminal charges and who are suspected of being removable, so that ICE can take custody of that person when he or she is released from local custody.

Muniz-Vazquez was released from the ODOC in November 2020, transferred to ICE custody and housed at the Northwest ICE Processing Center pending immigration proceedings.

“The safe and secure transfer of this convicted kidnapper is an excellent example of how law enforcement partnerships should work,” said ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations Seattle Field Office Director Nathalie Asher. “By honoring ICE’s immigration detainer, and safely transferring custody of this convicted criminal alien, our law enforcement partners have prevented an at-large arrest and the unnecessary increased risk that comes along with it.”

An immigration judge on Dec. 17, 2020, ordered Muniz-Vazquez removed from the United States. He was transported from the United States via an ICE Air Operations charter flight and transferred to the custody of Mexican authorities.

ICE is charged with enforcing federal immigration laws enacted by Congress. ICE officers are sworn law enforcement officers who carry out the arrest, detention and removal of aliens found to be in the United States unlawfully.