Illegal-migrant brothers sought for double murder in Mexico are nabbed in Texas
The feds collared accused killer Mexican brothers Pedro Luis Ortiz Mendez, 30, and Jose Vicente Ortiz Mendez, 29, in Arlington, Texas, on July 31, according to the Department of Homeland Security.
Accused killer Mexican brothers Pedro Luis Ortiz Mendez (right) and Jose Vicente Ortiz Mendez pose for their mugs.
Their mugshots featured them wearing ratty white t-shirts covered in paint splatters — and Pedro flashed an apparent slight smirk.
'From foreign fugitives, gang members, and terrorists, ICE is getting the worst of the worst off our street and out of country,' DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin told The Post.
The brothers are suspected of killing two people at a patron-saint festival in San Luis Potosi in central Mexico, north of Guanajuato, on May 24, 2024. One of the slain victims was shot, and the other was attacked with a machete, according to DHS.
The brothers snuck across the border undetected after the killings, DHS said.
Mexico's drug cartels worship several patron saints, with the narcos often leaving the severed heads of their victims at improvised shrines.
It is not clear if the brothers were tied to the cartels.
The cartels often carry out their gruesome murders in the name of Santa Muerte — a cross between the Grim Reaper and the Virgin of Guadeloupe, said Robert Almonte, a Texas-based security consultant and former deputy chief of the El Paso Police Department who specialized in narcotics, previously to The Post.
'The narcos and the gangs all believe in the power of prayer,' Almonte said at the time.
'They believe that the saints will protect them no matter what they do — and that's dangerous because it emboldens the traffickers who truly believe they can get away with murder and still go to heaven.'
Assistant DHS Secretary Tricia McLaughlin calls the brothers 'monsters.'
AP
While 70% of the migrants nabbed by ICE during President Trump's recent mass deportation sweeps are either charged or convicted in the US, those who are tied to foreign crimes aren't included in that statistic, McLaughlin said.
McLaughlin slammed the media for labeling such foreign targets as 'non-criminals' in some cases.
'Thanks to ICE law enforcement, these monsters who are wanted for multiple murders are off our streets,' she said. 'These two cold-blooded killers are representative of who media often refer to as 'non-criminals,' because they only have heinous convictions in their home country.
'70% of ICE arrests have been convicted or charged with a crime in the United States. The actual arrests of public safety threats and criminals is much higher,' she said.
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