Leonel Moreno is the illegal immigrant from Venezuela whose TikTok videos in which he urged other illegal immigrants to take advantage of America’s squatters’ rights laws and take over American homes by squatting in them has been arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials. Such was announced the Detroit field office of ICE, which said he was caught by ICE’s fugitive ops team in the town of Gahanna, Ohio.
According to Fox News Digital, which reported on Mr. Moreno’s arrest, ICE said in a statement that Moreno had been arrested and detained “pending further immigration proceedings.” Further, Fox News Digital reported that ICE confirmed Moreno entered the United States in April of 2022, and was placed in Border Patrol’s Alternatives to Detention program, from which he absconded.
Similarly, the New York Post reported that ICE, in a statement, said, “Leonel Moreno is an unlawfully present citizen of Venezuela, who illegally entered the country April 23, 2022. “Moreno was placed into the Alternatives To Detention program by Border Patrol and was told to report to Enforcement and Removal Operations office within 60 days of arriving at his destination. “Moreno did not report as required. On March 29, 2024, Moreno was arrested in Gahanna, Ohio by officers with ERO Detroit’s Columbus office and is currently detained pending further immigration proceedings.”
John Fabbricatore, a former ICE field office director in Denver, told the New York Post, when commenting on Moreno’s participation in and flight from the Alternative to Detention program, saying, “We have witnessed yet another individual who was allowed entry into the US under the ATD program, only to abscond and make TikTok videos explaining how to break the law. The question stands — how many thousands more are out there unaccounted for after fleeing this program?”
Commenting on the failure of the ATD program generally, Fabbricatore added, “The ICE Alternatives to Detention program, despite its multi-billion-dollar budget, is failing to meet necessary standards and has alarmingly high absconder rates. ICE fails to track down absconders and instead just removes them from the program.”
Then, describing why the ATD program’s failure is such a problem for Americans, he said, “This underscores a lack of accountability and allows illegal aliens to commit further crimes before ICE will make them a priority for detention and further removal. The Biden administration markets these policies as solutions, but in reality, it’s merely a smoke screen obscuring the chaos and failures at the border.”
Moreno is best known for a video in which he encouraged squatting in American homes and claimed he has friends who got away with it because of America’s shocking laws. “I have thought about invading a house in the United States,” he said. He continued, “I found out that there is a law that says that if a house is not inhabited, we can seize it.”
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In another video, he mocked those who, unlike him, work hard and earn their living rather than receiving checks for not doing much. “You’re hurt because I make more than you without much work while you work like slaves, understand?” he said. He continued, “That’s the difference between you and me. I’m always going to make lots of money without much work, and you’re always going to be exploited and miserable and insignificant.”
Watch Moreno here: