A Democrat judge in New Mexico has resigned after Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrested an alleged Tren de Aragua (TdA) gang member at his home.

Judge Joel Cano, the magistrate judge of Dona Ana County, New Mexico and a former police officer, allowed 23-year-old Cristhian Ortega-Lopez, who crossed the border illegally, to file a request for immigration relief using the judge’s home address. Pictures from social media showed the alleged TdA member posing with the judge, Breitbart reported.

Ortega-Lopez was detained on charges of illegal possession of a firearm and also has ties to TdA, federal prosecutors have said. Earlier this year, President Donald Trump declared TdA a foreign terrorist organization. 

Investigators with the Department of Justice were able to find pictures and video evidence of Ortega-Lopez and other illegal immigrants firing off rifles at a shooting range, and identified that Ortega-Lopez had tattoos associated with the TdA terror group.

The arrest followed a hearing where the prosecution said that he is a flight risk and has links to TdA. Court documents said that Ortega-Lopez entered the US via Eagle Pass, Texas in December 2023 at the height of the border crisis under former President Joe Biden.

He was taken to a detention facility at the time of his crossing, but due to overcrowding, he was released just three days later. After spending some time in El Paso, Texas, Ortega-Lopez met the judge’s wife, Nancy Cano, and began doing some handyman jobs as well as construction. Ortega-Lopez was then given an offer by Cano to live in a casita on her property in New Mexico. Images that were obtained by the outlet that were on Ortega-Lopez’s phone showed mutilated bodies, with some being decapitated.

Ortega-Lopez is currently in custody at Dona Ana County Detention Center on charges of being in the country illegally with firearms.