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HOUSTON (TNND) — An Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer was “brutally assaulted” by a convicted child predator, the agency announced.

ICE identified the suspect on Thursday as 33-year-old Walter Leonel Perez Rodriguez, a twice deported illegal immigrant and child predator from El Salvador.

The agency said Perez Rodriguez hit the officer in the face with a metal coffee cup when the officer was arresting him in Houston on Tuesday. A photo shows a gash in the officer’s upper lip, which ICE said required 13 stitches.

The officer’s face was also seriously burned during the incident, according to DHS.

This young officer’s life has forever been altered as a result of the continued hyper-politicization of routine law enforcement activities and spread of misinformation by the media, NGOs and other groups opposed to immigration enforcement in this country,” ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations Houston Field Office Director Bret Bradford said in a news release.Rather than take their issues up with Congress, they shift their rage at the brave men and women of ICE who are putting their lives on the line every day to defend our communities from foreign terrorists, gang members, and other violent criminal aliens who are in the country illegally,” Bradford added. “By focusing on our officers and spreading false propaganda about how we accomplish our mission, they are emboldening dangerous illegal aliens like this child predator to physically resist arrest. This insanity has to stop before anyone else gets hurt.”

ICE said Perez Rodriguez has illegally entered the U.S. on at least three occasions. He was ordered removed by an immigration judge and deported on June 28, 2013, as well as on Feb. 24, 2020.

While in the U.S., he has been convicted of sexually assaulting a child in January 2013, DWI in September 2014, and illegal reentry in January 2020,” the release noted. “Following this most recent arrest, he was referred for prosecution for illegal reentry and assaulting a federal officer.”Comment with Bubbles

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ICE urged anyone who has information about criminal illegal immigrants, transnational gang members, or foreign fugitives who are in the U.S. illegally, to call the ICE Tip Line at 1-866-347-2423 or internationally at 001-1802-872-6199.