The Clay County Sheriff is giving more details about the suspect arrested in Clay County Monday near Vashti after a chase and five-hour manhunt.

Sheriff Kenny Lemons said Douglas Guevera-Medrano, 20, is an illegal immigrant and a member of the notorious MS-13, an international crime gang.

Medrano has 11 charges including six from Dallas County for criminal mischief and theft. He’s also jailed on a federal hold for being in this country illegally. Lemons said he believes if U.S. and local immigration policies were different, Medrano would never have made it into Clay County to endanger multiple lives.

Lemons said Medrano is well known among Dallas law enforcement.

“He came from El Salvador in a neighborhood in El Salvador that is strictly MS-13. He lived in the Metroplex in a neighborhood where it is predominantly MS-13,” Lemons said. “This is not new information to these folks in Dallas. We don’t have MS-13 living in Clay County, and if we can keep them out of Clay County that’s what we want to do.”

Lemons said the manhunt should never have been necessary because Medrano should not have been allowed to stay in this country.

“Especially when you have these people captured, these dangerous gang members from El Salvador and you don’t have them deported,” Lemons said. “This man should not have been in Vashti, TX on Monday. We should not have been chasing him. We should not have anything to do with this. This man should have been deported and sent back to his home country.”

While some support open borders, Lemons said border security should be a priority to keep everyone safe. 13th District Congressman Mac Thornberry agrees as he said a bi-partisan solution in Washington seems to be nowhere in sight.

“If we were working on real solutions, the President would have gotten money for border security and he wouldn’t have had to go into the military budget in order to build fences and so forth,” Thornberry said. “If we were really focused on solving problems we would improve border security and also begin to overhaul our legal immigration policy, like the asylum law.”

Lemons said Medrano will not be getting out of the Clay County jail to endanger more lives here.

“We have a felony and a misdemeanor charge on him in Clay County,” Lemons said. “His bonds are extremely high combined with the other bonds out of Dallas County. I can assure you an ICE detainer was placed on him the minute he got here. He will not be released on bond from this agency. Once he makes bond it is up to ICE to take care of him from there.”

Thanks to quick action by law enforcement, Lemons is just relieved a situation in Clay County that could have been deadly was resolved peacefully.

Lemons said he has information that Medrano was heading north and that is one reason Highway 287 is a dangerous road to work because it may be used by gang members regularly.

Medrano has four charges of criminal mischief from Farmer’s Branch after police say he shot at a building’s window with a bb gun. He also has charges of theft and failure to identify from there. Medrano has charges from Richardson for criminal mischief and theft.