Killer condemned by El Salvador trapped in NJ after re -initiating illegally, the federals say

A citizen of El Salvador, previously convicted of double homicide in his country of origin, was arrested Friday in Elizabeth, federal prosecutors said.

César Eliseo Sorto-Amaya, 28, was accused on Friday of illegally restarting the United States, said the district of the United States Prosecutor’s Office in New Jersey in a statement.

Since 2015, Sorto-Amaya was illegally deported and returned to the United States three separate times, the office said.

On October 30, 2016, he was deported after being sentenced for positions of possession of weapons in Elizabeth, authorities said.

Sorto-Amaya returned to the United States in an unknown place and an unknown date and on August 26, 2017 and was arrested by the border patrol of the United States, according to a criminal complaint. Twelve days later he was transferred again to El Salvador.

He restarted the United States once again on an unknown date in an unknown place without the permission of the Attorney General or the Secretary of National Security, according to the complaint.

On February 12, El Salvadoran Police contacted ICE agents and informed them that Sorto-Amaya was sought by double homicide charges aggravated in El Salvador, where he was sentenced in absence on April 22, 2024, and sentenced to 50 years in prison, the investigators said.

No other details were released on their crime in El Salvador.

The detectives in El Salvador also notified ICE that Sorto-Amaya was located in a house in Elizabeth and provided a photograph of him, according to the complaint.

On Friday, ICE officers found him on the porch of the house and was arrested, the office said.

He appeared on Friday at the Federal Court of Newark, but it was not clear what measures they took.