An illegal migrant man on Long Island has been arrested for allegedly raping a five-year-old girl.
Wilson Castillo Diaz, 26, is accused of raping the little girl on October 16, Nassau County police said. The girl was taken to a local hospital to be medically evaluated after the alleged rape, according to police.
Details about where the alleged rape occurred and what Diaz’s relationship with the child is were not immediately released.
Diaz is facing a litany of charges including rape, attempted rape, and endangering the welfare of a child.
His bond was set at $200,000.
Diaz crossed into the U.S. illegally near the Rio Grande in Texas back in April 2014, during the Obama administration, police said. It is not clear which country he traveled from.
He was apprehended by border agents, but released and then failed to appear at his immigration hearing.
Most recently, he had been living in Westbury, about a half hour west of Queens.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has been notified of his arrest, police said.
The case echoes several other recent alleged incidents involving illegal migrants targeting children.
In nearby Queens, a 25-year-old Ecuadorian migrant who crossed the border illegally in 2021 was arrested in June in connection with the rape of a 13-year-old girl in a park. The suspect allegedly threatened a 13-year-old boy and girl with a machete-style knife, tied their wrists together with a shoelace, and then sexually assaulted the girl.
In August, a 26-year-old Haitian national was accused of aggravated rape of a child in a Boston area migrant shelter.
In another Massachusetts case, a 28-year-old illegal migrant from El Salvador was accused of raping a 14-year-old on the wealthy island of Nantucket.
In another wealthy area, Martha’s Vineyard, a 24-year-old Brazilian national was charged with raping a minor earlier this year.
The border crisis has dogged the Biden administration.
The administration was on track for 10 million encounters with illegal migrants at the border by this fall. Meanwhile, more than 1.7 million migrant “gotaways,” those who avoided detection, have snuck over the border as well under Biden.
Illegal immigration has loomed large ahead of Tuesday’s presidential election.
Former President Trump and Republicans have hammered the issue, their strongest issue this election cycle, while Vice President Kamala Harris has largely sought to avoid it.
However, Harris has claimed she does want to build a border wall after originally calling the project “un-American” when Trump proposed it.