MS-13 gang member in ICE custody after being arrested in Lakeway

LAKEWAY, Texas - An MS-13 gang member is in ICE custody after being arrested by Lakeway police on Tuesday.

Luis Manuel Hernandez Bonilla was wanted for homicide in El Salvador.

"There are thousands, thousands of illegal gang members in this country right now," Retired police, Lieutenant, and founder of The Wounded Blue, Randy Sutton, said.

Lakeway police took one gang member off the streets. On Tuesday, LPS spotted a truck with defective brake lamps and pulled it over.

"This particular thing was a very minor offense, right? Well, the fact that the officers made the stop for this shows me that those are police officers who are working cops," Sutton said.

RELATED: MS-13 gang member wanted for murder in El Salvador arrested in Lakeway: LPD

The driver’s name was Luis Manuel Hernandez Bonilla.

"It's a normal procedure when a police officer makes a vehicle stop, they will enter that information into the NCIC system and if there is an active warrant, whether it is, it's usually extraditable, it's got to be a felony warrant or they won't enter it into the computer, it'll pop out," Sutton said.

It was revealed Hernandez Bonilla was wanted by El Salvadorian authorities for homicide. LPD turned him over to federal immigration authorities.

"This is a prime example of, okay, you make your car stop for a very minor vehicle violation and yet it led to the arrest of a horrible killer," Sutton said.

According to police, Hernandez Bonilla is a MS-13 gang member.

"They are an exceedingly violent street gang," Sutton said. "They compete for one another for fear. They want to be known as the baddest of the bad. How do you do that? Well, you do that by being as bloodthirsty and as cruel as humanly possible."

ICE hasn’t indicated Hernandez Bonilla’s citizenship status, although it is illegal for U.S. immigration authorities to hold Americans in detention.

President-elect Donald Trump promised to carry out mass deportations once he returns to the Oval Office. His border czar, Tom Homan, revealed aspects of the plan.

"We're going to shut the border down, we're going to have the largest deportation operation this country has ever seen," Homan said. "The priority is going to be public safety threats, a national security threat. They will be the priorities."

It’s unclear how many people are currently living here illegally. Estimates vary and start at around 11 million.

"It's a much bigger problem than just saying MS-13 the gang is a problem, we have a criminal justice crisis in America and, unfortunately, this is one of the manifestations that we're going to be fighting and there will be more blood on the streets because of it," Sutton said.

Sutton said the next step for Hernandez Bonilla is for ICE to decide to either send him back to El Salvador or, if he’s facing any charges here, to try those first.