MARIO RAMIRO ARAGON-RUANO, a 43-year-old citizen of Guatemala, pleaded guilty on April 9 before U.S. District Judge Vernon D. Oliver in Hartford to the charge of unlawful reentry of a removed alien, according to an announcement by David X. Sullivan, United States Attorney for the District of Connecticut.
The case highlights ongoing efforts by federal authorities to address repeated illegal entries into the United States by individuals with serious criminal backgrounds.
Court documents show that Aragon-Ruano was first encountered by U.S. Border Patrol in Arizona in August 2006 under the name Jose Juana-Zapata and deported later that month with a warning not to return for five years. He subsequently returned and was arrested in 2007. In August 2008, using another alias, he was convicted in federal court in New York on a murder-for-hire charge and sentenced to over seven years in prison before being deported again to Guatemala in September 2013.
Aragon-Ruano was found again by border patrol agents in Arizona in July 2019 and convicted early the next year for illegally reentering after removal; he served just over a year before being deported for a third time. Authorities say he unlawfully returned once more and was arrested on January 10, 2026, by Waterbury Police on state charges including criminal trespass and breach of peace. After his release on bond from those charges, Immigration and Customs Enforcement took him into custody two days later.
He has remained detained since his arrest while awaiting sentencing scheduled for July 1, where he faces up to twenty years imprisonment.
The investigation is being conducted by ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations and prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Neeraj N. Patel. The case is part of Operation Take Back America—a nationwide Department of Justice initiative aimed at combating illegal immigration and related violent crime.
