Alexis Saborit-Viltres, the 42-year-old man who beheaded a woman in Shakopee, Minnesota last week is an illegal alien from Cuba, Alpha News has learned.
“Alexis Saborit-Viltres, 42, is a citizen of Cuba who is unlawfully present in the United States. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has not placed a detainer on Saborit-Viltres following his recent arrest for second-degree murder in Shakopee, Minnesota,” ICE spokesperson Shawn Neudauer told Alpha News Tuesday.
Neudauer confirmed that Saborit-Viltres’s criminal history includes multiple convictions in Minnesota and Louisiana for domestic abuse, DUI, and fleeing a police officer. He has pending charges for first-degree arson, first-degree criminal damage to property, and obstruction of the legal process stemming from a 2020 arrest in Scott County.
ICE previously attempted to remove Saborit-Viltres to Cuba in 2012 but was unsuccessful because his home country wouldn’t approve the necessary travel documents, an ICE official explained. He was eventually released on an order of supervision.
The 2001 Supreme Court decision Zadvydas v. Davis limits the length of time under the Immigration and Nationality Act that ICE can detain noncitizens who are subject to a deportation order, the official said.
The ruling generally precludes the agency from holding noncitizens with final orders of removal for more than six months if their actual removal cannot occur in the reasonably foreseeable future. This is often due to a foreign government’s refusal to accept the repatriation of its nationals, according to the ICE official.
So when Saborit-Viltres asked to be deported during his first court appearance last week, he likely knew it couldn’t happen because his home country won’t take him back.
Saborit-Viltres faces a charge of second-degree intentional murder in the July 28 killing of 55-year-old America Mafalda Thayer. The Cuban national used a machete to execute his victim in a car in the middle of a residential intersection, a gruesome display that was witnessed and filmed by multiple bystanders.
Anthony Gockowski
Anthony Gockowski is Editor-in-Chief of Alpha News. He previously worked as an editor for The Minnesota Sun and Campus Reform, and wrote for the Daily Caller.
