ICE said this week that officers tried to stop a vehicle in New Jersey to detain Friedrich Castillo-Ormeno, a Peruvian immigrant with a final deportation order. Castillo-Ormeno said he was already in Peru when that enforcement move happened, and he says he had been paid to leave the United States voluntarily.
The case matters now because the federal account and Castillo-Ormeno’s account point in opposite directions. ICE said one of its officers was struck by a vehicle during the attempt to arrest him in Manahawkin, New Jersey, and the officer later received hospital care for leg injuries. Castillo-Ormeno, speaking from Pisco, Peru, said the accusation left him stunned because it made him sound like a criminal even though he says he had already gone home.
Castillo-Ormeno said he came to the United States in the summer of 2022 and kept checking in with ICE while his asylum case moved through immigration court. He said an immigration judge issued a final order of removal on Jan. 30, then he left on March 2 and reached Peru the following day. He shared pictures of his plane tickets and the family’s flight back to Peru, and said he and his girlfriend each received $2,600 through CBP Home after verifying that he was in his country.
That payment is at the center of why the dispute is so sharp. NBC News and Telemundo reviewed emails showing that Castillo-Ormeno got the CBP Home incentive in late April, which lines up with his account that the money came after he had already returned to Peru. If that sequence is right, the question is not whether he was paid to leave, but how ICE concluded that he was connected to the New Jersey incident at all.
The Department of Homeland Security stood by ICE’s original statement on Wednesday, but it also said it never claimed Castillo-Ormeno was the driver of the vehicle that was weaponized against the officer. DHS said ICE officers were conducting a targeted immigration enforcement operation at his last known address when they saw someone who looked similar to the target get into a van that left the residence. That leaves the agency defending its account while stopping short of saying he was behind the wheel.
For Castillo-Ormeno, the issue is bigger than one stop in New Jersey. He said the accusation could follow him later because it treats him as if he committed a violent act, even though he says he had already complied with the removal process and left on his own. ICE has not publicly explained how it linked him to the vehicle-stop incident, and that gap is now the most important unanswered part of the story.
