ICE Arrests Boat Captain in Deadly Harbor Capsizing

Immigration agents have arrested Manuel Ernesto Hernandez-Umana, the 46-year-old boat captain charged in the drowning deaths of a mother and her 5-month-old daughter in New York Harbor, because the Department of Homeland Security says he is in the country illegally.

DHS says Hernandez-Umana, a citizen of El Salvador who was living in Manville, New Jersey, entered the United States through Texas in 2007 after falsely telling a Customs and Border Protection officer that he was a U.S. citizen.

He is being held at an ICE detention facility in Elizabeth, New Jersey, according to online records. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said he will eventually be deported.

What Prosecutors Allege

Hernandez was not licensed by the U.S. Coast Guard, had not registered the boat, lacked the certification to carry paying customers in the harbor and did not know the vessel's maximum capacity, according to the complaint filed in the Southern District of New York.

The boat carried no infant-sized flotation device. Prosecutors say the baby's parents raised that before boarding and Hernandez told them one of them would have to wear a vest and hold the child for the duration of the tour — a violation of federal regulations. Sanchez did.

Prosecutors say the charter was illegal and overcrowded, and that Hernandez told investigators he had borrowed a friend's boat that day because his own needed repairs.