A North Carolina man in the country through the DACA program faces charges for rape and kidnapping after a 14-year-old girl didn’t come home from school.
Victor Alfonso Villalba Bustamante, 41, is also facing deportation after being arrested on multiple charges, including two counts of statutory rape, abduction of a child, felony conspiracy to commit abduction, second-degree kidnapping and solicitation of a minor by computer, WYFF 4 News reports.
According to the Lee County Sheriff’s Office, Bustamante picked the teenage girl up from a local middle school on Wednesday, April 9.
The sheriff’s office was notified, and investigators found the two together at a Red Roof Inn in Sanford, N.C. Warrants show Bustamante used Facebook to contact the teen.
Bustamante appeared before a Lee County Magistrate, where a judge denied bond. The sheriff’s office said Bustamante was determined not to be a legal U.S. resident and will be held on a federal detainer.
In an X post this week, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said: “Another sicko removed from our streets. Victor Villalba-Bustamante, an illegal alien and DACA recipient, was arrested for kidnapping and raping a 14-year-old girl and is now under investigation for human trafficking. The Biden Administration protected criminal illegal aliens, including child predators and human traffickers, over American citizens. Thank you President @realDonaldTrump for putting the safety of Americans FIRST.”
As of December 2024, there were roughly 538,000 active DACA recipients from nearly 200 different countries of birth residing all over the U.S., according to uscis.gov.
The DACA program is under legal challenge and could be headed to the U.S. Supreme Court. Since 2021, the government has not processed new DACA applications, but the court has allowed people with DACA to continue to renew.
A July 2021 ruling by the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas determined that DACA is unlawful. The Biden administration appealed the decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. On Jan. 17, 2025, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that certain parts of the DACA program were unlawful.
Bustamante’s arrest is the third recent case of a teen girl connecting with men involved in kidnapping and human trafficking on social media in the rural region of North Carolina, WRAL News reports.
Chadrick Barefoot with the SBI Computer Crimes Child Exploitation Task Force told WRAL News it’s easy for traffickers to reach a child if they have internet access. He said traffickers groom their victims online, building trust before arranging dangerous meet-ups, and parents must be vigilant of their child’s activity online.
Morrissa Moyer with the Center for Missing Persons told WRAL News that 15-year-old girls are especially vulnerable in cases like this.
“15-year-old females, specifically 15-year-old females who are minorities, go missing the most,” Moyer said. “We don’t have a real reason why that happens, but this is very much on par statistically with what happens on a state level and a national level.”
