Israel Flores Ortiz, the 18-year-old convicted of assaulting female classmates at Fairfax High School in Virginia, has been transferred from local custody to US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the Fairfax County Sheriff’s Office said.
Ortiz was due to leave jail on Thursday, 3 September, after serving about 140 days of a 360-day sentence. Instead, sheriff’s officials handed him over to federal immigration authorities on Monday, 31 August.
He was convicted in April of nine counts of assault and battery after girls told police he had approached them from behind in crowded school corridors and touched them between the legs. He was initially charged with 13 offences; three charges ended in acquittals and one was dismissed.
Ortiz turned himself in on 7 March after Fairfax High School reported several alleged assaults to police. More students came forward after his arrest, leading to additional charges.
Ortiz moved into ICE custody
The Department of Homeland Security said Ortiz entered the United States unlawfully from El Salvador in 2024. ICE issued a detainer during the case, requesting that he be held for immigration authorities when his criminal sentence ended.
Lauren Bis, a deputy assistant secretary at DHS, previously criticised the decision to allow Ortiz to attend the school, saying in a March statement that he “should NOT have been attending a Virginia high school and allowed to prey on innocent teenage girls”.
It has not been confirmed when Ortiz could be removed from the country. DHS had not publicly detailed the next stage of the immigration proceedings by Monday.
The case prompted an independent review of Fairfax County Public Schools’ handling of the reports. In June, the school district said the investigation had found that administrators acted promptly, followed required Title IX procedures and separated Ortiz from other pupils after identifying him through corridor surveillance footage.
The district said Ortiz, who was a junior at Fairfax High School, would not return to its schools.
One of the victims told FOX 5 in June that the outcome represented some measure of justice, but said it had come “too little too late”.
