An illegal immigrant living in New Jersey has been charged with kidnapping and sexually assaulting a six-year-old girl, in a case that has drawn attention to US immigration enforcement policy. Lester Noe Perez-Amador, 27, allegedly broke into a home in Washington Borough over the Labor Day weekend, took the child, and assaulted her before she made her own way home; he was arrested the following day and is said to have been known to the victim. The Department of Homeland Security has lodged a detainer against him and is pressing local authorities to hand him over to immigration custody.

Perez-Amador faces two counts of aggravated sexual assault and one count of endangering the welfare of a child, alongside earlier charges of home invasion burglary and kidnapping, which under New Jersey law can carry a maximum sentence of life imprisonment with 25 years before parole eligibility. DHS says he was previously detained after a drunk-driving arrest and taken into immigration custody in March 2024, but was released under the Biden administration rather than deported; it wants him sent back to Guatemala. He remains in Warren County jail and is due in court on 19 October.