Honduran man gets 30 months in federal prison after Buena Vista arrest

A Buena Vista County arrest for operating while intoxicated turned into a federal illegal-reentry case that now ends with Carlos Castro-Izaguirre facing 30 months in prison and two years of supervised release. U.S. District Judge Leonard T. Strand entered the judgment in Sioux City, and the sentence carries no parole in the federal system.

Castro-Izaguirre, 37, pleaded guilty in October 2025 to one count of felon found after illegal reentry under 8 U.S.C. §§ 1326(a) and 1326(b)(2). The judgment lists the offense end date as May 19, 2024, tying the federal case back to the Buena Vista County arrest that brought him to law enforcement attention more than a year earlier.

According to federal authorities, Castro-Izaguirre was arrested in Buena Vista County in May 2024 on the OWI charge, then released before immigration officials could interview him. Investigators later matched his fingerprints and confirmed both his identity and his removal history. Officials say he had been deported to Honduras in 2009 and again in 2019.

The record behind the federal sentence stretches back much farther. Before his first removal, Castro-Izaguirre was convicted in Cherokee County in 2007 for delivery of methamphetamine and served a prison sentence. Federal authorities say he was later found in Texas in 2017, convicted there of illegal reentry, and removed again two years later. After that, they say, he reentered the United States at an unknown time before being located again in northwest Iowa.

The case was investigated by the Department of Homeland Security and the Buena Vista County Sheriff’s Office, and Assistant U.S. Attorney Kraig Hamit handled the prosecution. The judgment says the 30-month federal term must be served consecutively to any sentence in Buena Vista County case OWCR048036, making the local and federal matters distinct but linked.

For Buena Vista County, the case shows how a local arrest can ripple into federal court when fingerprints, prior removals and criminal history line up. It is the kind of repeat-reentry prosecution that turns a county-level stop into a broader public-safety case, especially when the defendant has already been deported twice and has a prior drug trafficking conviction in Iowa. The judgment also recommends a Bureau of Prisons facility within 500 miles of Miami, Florida, and requires Castro-Izaguirre to notify federal authorities within 30 days of any change of name, residence or mailing address while financial obligations remain unpaid.