EL PASO, Texas (Border Report) — A Mexican man wanted for homicide has been returned to his country after entering the U.S. illegally several times.

Jose Sebastian Cobian Ceballos, 22, who is accused of homicide in the Western Mexican state of Colima, was turned over to Mexican authorities on May 25, U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement announced this week.

Cobian allegedly entered the U.S. illegally on March 1, at or near the New Mexico suburb of Santa Teresa near El Paso, Texas. ICE said U.S. Border Patrol agents arrested him on April 19 in Desert Haven in Hudspeth County, Texas.

An immigration judge had ordered Cobian removed from the United States to Mexico last month, and officers with ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations handed him over to Mexican authorities at the Stanton Street Bridge in Downtown El Paso.

“ERO El Paso’s strong partnership with our Mexican counterparts is helping keep our country and border community safe from dangerous foreign fugitives who try to find safe haven in the United States,” said ERO El Paso Field Office Director Mary De Anda-Ybarra. “ERO officers will continue to work tirelessly to identify, arrest and remove public safety threats.”

Cobian had entered the U.S. illegally through Santa Teresa at least two times before — July 14, 2022, and Feb. 21, 2023. Both times, ICE said, agents expelled him to to Mexico under Title 42, the public health order that allowed for the immediate removal of migrants to reduce the cross-border spread of COVID-19.

ICE said that in Fiscal 2022, ERO arrested 46,396 noncitizens with 198,498 associated charges and convictions, including:

• 21,531 assault offenses
• 8,164 sex and sexual assault offenses
• 5,554 weapons offenses
• 1,501 homicide-related offenses
• 1,114 kidnapping offenses.