The United States Department of Justice has filed charges against a twice-deported illegal immigrant from Honduras, Oscar Solarzano-Garcia, who is accused of stabbing a 24-year-old on the Charlotte light rail on December 5th. He is being charged with re-entry of a removed alien and committing an act of violence on a mass transportation system.
“Not only should this defendant have already been in prison — he should not have been in our country to begin with,” said Attorney General Pamela Bondi. “This attack is more tragic evidence that soft-on-crime policies and vetting failures put innocent citizens at risk. My prosecutors will deliver swift, comprehensive justice in this case.”
FBI Director Kash Patel said this type of violence will not stand in American cities.
“The people of Charlotte deserve to live in a safe city and this horrific act should never have happened,” said Patel. “As the FBI has illustrated, we will not stand for this type of violence in our communities. Our mission is to keep our communities safe and that is exactly what the men and women of the FBI are working to accomplish each and every day.”
This marks the second high-profile violent incident on Charlotte’s public transit system. On August 22, 2025, 23-year-old Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska was brutally murdered by a repeat offender, Decarlos Brown Jr. while riding the Lynx Blue Line. Brown was also charged by the feds.
“This defendant is charged with coming back to the United States after being deported not once, but twice, and then stabbing a passenger in the chest on our city’s public transit system,” said U.S. Attorney Russ Ferguson for the Western District of North Carolina. “Everyone who uses public transportation is the victim of a crime like this, and we will act swiftly to prosecute those who violate our immigration laws and endanger the lives of citizens using public transit to go about their daily lives.”
The criminal complaint alleges that Solorzano-Garcia is an alien unlawfully present in the United States. It is further alleged that in 2012, Solorzano-Garcia was arrested by the Union County Police Department in New Jersey and was later convicted of robbery. In July 2016, Solorzano-Garcia was arrested by the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office in Florida for aggravated battery with a deadly weapon, and he was removed from the United States in March 2018. Nine months later, Solorzano-Garcia was arrested by U.S. Border Patrol. He was convicted of illegal reentry and was sentenced to 18 months in prison. On June 9, 2021, Solorzano-Garcia was removed from the United States out of Alexandria, Louisiana. DHS reports they are not sure of the time and location at which he made his third entry into the US.