Back to Mexico

Abymahel Torres-Arriaga, age 36, appears to be on his way back to his native Veracruz, Mexico, after pleading guilty this afternoon in federal court in downtown Minneapolis. Your correspondent was there.

Mr. Torres pled guilty to one count of re-entry of a removed alien, a felony. To restate: Mr. Torres was convicted today on a felony charge of illegal immigration. Throughout the hour-long hearing, Mr. Torres depended upon the services of a Spanish-language interpreter.

On May 7, 2025. he was arrested by ICE in the parking lot of the Red Wing-area restaurant where he was employed. He entered the Dept. of Justice’s Fast Track program.

Since his May arrest, he has been held at the federal lockup at the Sherburne County jail.

He appears to have gotten onto the ICE radar most recently after a felony drug sale conviction back in March (stayed sentence, of course). Torres appears to have been part of a drug-smuggling ring bringing cocaine up from Mexico. The police complaint in his Goodhue County drug case runs for 25 pages. The original state charges included five felony counts.

A search of Torres’ Red Wing-area home related to the drug bust uncovered, among many, many items, four driver’s licenses and four social security cards.

So, Torres is now a twice-convicted felon. He had been previously deported back in 2013. At today’s hearing, it was mentioned that there were perhaps one or two other previous deportations.

It came out that Torres holds a university degree in Mexico in the culinary arts. His lawyer says that Torres is a hard worker, but it wasn’t made clear if that applied to his restaurant work, his coke dealing, or both.

In today’s guilty plea, Torres could have been sentenced to one to seven months in federal prison. Instead, he was sentenced to time served with the understanding that the U.S. Marshals would hand him over to ICE for removal to Mexico.

¡Adios, Aby, adios!