Jesus Aguilar-Santos appears to have been in Wyandotte County, Kansas’ custody six times over 11 years.

Yet, it was apparently only after the Mexican national allegedly hit and killed a man with a car and seriously wounded a woman Sept. 26 that authorities have put an immigration hold on him.

Names of illegal immigrant crime victims such as Laken Riley are increasingly high-profile – and should live on in memory. But hidden beneath the infamous illegal immigrant murders, rapes and road killings of Americans, like a vast unseen root system, is a veritable immigrant crime wave going largely unreported.

Indeed, felony jail bookings in the Unified Government of Wyandotte County/Kansas City, Kansas, alone present case after case after case of foreign-born suspects in weapons and drug crimes, aggravated assaults, possession of stolen property, indecent liberties with a child, vehicular involuntary manslaughter and more.

Notably, jail bookings indicate felony arrests of foreign nationals in Wyandotte County spiked considerably in September through mid-October, compared to a similar period in 2019 – before the Biden-Harris administration overturned Trump-era border security measures in a series of executive orders.

Meanwhile, it appears precious few of those arrested – either in 2019 or this year – have been convicted and sent to prison by Wyandotte County District Attorney Mark Dupree.

It’s important to note that an arrestee listed in jail booking records as foreign-born is not necessarily an illegal immigrant. It’s also notable that the Heartlander obtained booking information for felonies; the numbers don’t include arrests of foreign nationals for lesser crimes.

The Heartlander obtained felony arrest records for 21 foreign nationals through that brief time period this year, compared to 12 in 2019 – a 75% increase since Biden and Harris took office.

Among this year’s 21 felony bookings obtained by the Heartlander, there were at least four with no formal charges being filed. Two of the four released were from Mexico, one from El Salvador and another from Guatemala.

In the 12 cases from 2019, fully half of the foreign nationals ended up not being charged with crimes by Dupree’s office, records show.

“There’s been a sharp, huge uptick in the number of bookings [with] immigration detainers” in Wyandotte County, a local criminal justice professional told The Heartlander on condition of anonymity just prior to the Nov. 5 election.

“And what I gather from that is that with the election looming, and immigration being such a hot-button issue in the election, I think that somewhere along that chain of command [at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement] the rules have changed in the past three to four weeks.” 

But as for the amount of foreign-born arrests in general, the professional said, “I can tell you that if you were to go back and examine the bookings over the past two or three years or more … I don’t think you’re going to see anything new, statistically speaking.”

Even when Dupree’s office has managed to get a conviction it hasn’t necessarily been final: Josue Emmanuel Arita, a Guatemalan sentenced to two consecutive life terms for sex crimes against children in a 2019 case, had his conviction overturned by the Kansas Court of Appeals because Dupree’s office had charged him with one crime and inexplicably tried him on a different one.

“Specifically, prosecutors charged Arita with ‘furnishing’ the minors for abuse by someone else instead of charging him for engaging in the abuse,” Kansas City TV station KSHB reported.

“The appeals court says prosecutors presented evidence [at trial] that implicated Arita specifically. But because the charges were that Arita ‘furnished’ the [minors] – evidence of which wasn’t presented at trial – Arita’s conviction and sentence would be overturned.”

His conviction was indeed reversed, and his sentence vacated by the court – but he could not be tried again for the same crime. Dupree’s office said it was their understanding Arita would be deported, but apparently he was not – as he is currently suing the state of Kansas for wrongful imprisonment.

Records show Arita had also previously been arrested multiple times in Wyandotte County – including once for aggravated assault and aggravated domestic battery. While he apparently wasn’t formally charged in that case, records indicate at one point there was a detainer on him from ICE.

Records now show Arita is suing the state of Kansas for wrongful conviction – and is scheduled to be deposed in his lawsuit Monday in Topeka.

Arita’s lawsuit, filed last February, describes him as a 37-year-old resident of Cottonwood Falls, Kansas. The lawsuit says he was charged in September 2019 with two counts of aggravated criminal sodomy and two counts of aggravated indecent liberties with a child. It notes that his 2022 convictions and sentences were vacated by the Kansas Court of Appeals on June 9, 2023.

The lawsuit argues Arita wrongfully served four years in prison and was forced to register as a sex offender for a year and a half before the vacating of his sentence.

His lawsuit is seeking “monetary relief to the full extent allowed” under Kansas law; attorneys fees and costs; non-monetary relief as allowed under the law; tuition assistance; state health care benefits; a certificate “finding that Josue was innocent of all crimes for which he was mistakenly convicted”; expungement of conviction records; and destruction of biological samples associated with the case.

Kansas law provides $65,000 in compensation “for each year of imprisonment” for those wrongfully convicted and imprisoned.

Other notable arrests of foreign nationals from Wyandotte County’s booking records include:

• A Mexican national accused of aggravated domestic battery; case dismissed after two pre-trial hearings; no ICE detainer.
• A Mexican national arrested for aggravated burglary; pleaded to misdemeanor, but arrest warrant indicates he’s absconded.
• A Mexican national arrested for felony possession of stolen property. No formal charges listed; had ICE detainer; had warrants for arrest in both KCK and the city of Lenexa.
• A Laotian national booked for his fourth DUI in 10 years; probation granted; prior bookings for traffic offenses with no ICE detainers.
• A Nepalese national booked for aggravated assault; no ICE detainer; case dismissed at preliminary hearing after witnesses failed to show.
• A Mexican national booked for criminal possession of a firearm by a felon and discharge of a firearm within city limits. Also had probation violation warrant in another case (felony drug possession). No formal charges relating to being caught w/ a firearm; no ICE detainer, but did have a detainer warrant issued by Fremont County, Iowa; also previously had another felony drug possession case in Wyandotte County, dismissed in return for a guilty plea in another case.
• A Mexican national booked for felony fleeing and eluding; probation granted; had ICE detainer.
• A Guatemalan national (though two of his earlier bookings show “Mexican”) booked for aggravated battery, later amended down to felon with a firearm. Case dismissed per plea in another aggravated battery case (pled down to making a criminal threat). Defendant had criminal history calling for presumptive prison, but received probation. Case notes indicate defendant is now deceased. No ICE detainers on any of his bookings.