A Venezuelan illegal migrant with suspected gang ties was released into the US last year before “terrorizing” New York City — and has yet to be deported, according a House committee report and other documents obtained exclusively by The Post.
Department of Homeland Security officials stonewalled congressional requests for months about Daniel Hernandez Martinez, 30, the migrant who The Post revealed last September had been arrested — and released — six times on 14 charges in the Big Apple.
Now, the House Judiciary Committee has received Martinez’s full Homeland Security record, revealing the “suspected Tren de Aragua gang member” committed a total of “at least 22 criminal offenses” in New York City between June and November 2023, a 10-page report released Wednesday shows.
The US Border Patrol first encountered Martinez “near Ysleta, Texas,” on Jan. 23, 2023, according to the record.
At the time of his arrest in January, border agents noted that he was a suspected member of Tren de Aragua and kicked him back to Mexico under the Trump-era Title 42 COVID expulsion order, Homeland Security sources told The Post.
Agents likely couldn’t confirm his membership with the gang because they don’t have access to Venezuelan databases, the sources said.
He “subsequently” snuck back into the US at an unknown date, time and place.
Hernandez’s six-month crime spree months later in New York included counts of petit larceny, criminal possession of a weapon and assault, among others.
US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) only became involved after the suspected gang member’s seventh encounter with the NYPD, lodging a detainer against him on Sept. 1, 2023.
Hernandez went on to briefly serve time at Rikers Island before being released again in November 2023 and arrested twice more.
He was ordered deported in June 2024, but because Venezuela stopped accepting deportation flights, he’s likely to stay here indefinitely, per sources.
Hernandez remains in ICE custody in Buffalo, NY.
The Judiciary panel report takes aim in particular at Vice President Kamala Harris for her past support of generous asylum and mass amnesty policies — as well as Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.
One of the guidelines in a Sept. 30, 2021, memo issued by Mayorkas “limits ICE officers’ ability to arrest criminal aliens,” according to the Judiciary report.
That memo was one of several policies by the Biden administration that prompted House Republicans to accuse Mayorkas of flouting federal immigration law — and impeach him in February.
“In less than four years, the Biden-Harris Administration has released into the United States more than 5.4 million illegal aliens, with another 1.9 million illegal alien ‘gotaways’ escaping into the country during the same time,” the memo also states.
“That chaos at the southwest border, created and incentivized by the radical policies of President Joe Biden and ‘border czar‘ Vice President Kamala Harris, has led to insecurity in the interior of the country.”
Reps for ICE did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
