24-year-old fleeing ICE agents is fatally struck by vehicle on Virginia highway

A 24-year-old Hondurian national was struck and killed by a vehicle while fleeing Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers in Virginia last week.

Josué Castro Rivera was on his way to his gardening job Thursday when ICE officers pulled over his vehicle and tried to detain him and three other passengers, according to his brother, Henry Castro.

Castro Rivera bolted on foot from the scene and attempted to cross Interstate 264 in Norfolk — where a 2002 Ford pickup fatally struck him, according to state and federal authorities.

He was pronounced dead on the scene around 11 a.m., according to the Virginia State Police.

“He had a very good heart,” his devastated brother said Sunday.

Castro Rivera had been living in the US for four years and was sending money back to Honduras for his family, Henry said.

ICE officers had been carrying out a “targeted, intelligence-based” operation, and that the passengers were detained for allegedly living in the country without legal permission, the Department of Homeland Security said in a statement.

Castro Rivera “resisted heavily and fled” and died after a passing vehicle hit him, the DHS said.

“He didn’t deserve everything that happened to him,” his heartbroken brother said.

Castro Rivera’s family plans to raise money to send his body back to Honduras for a funeral, blasting his death as an “injustice.”

The DHS said the garden-worker’s death was “a direct result of every politician, activist, and reporter who continues to spread propaganda and misinformation about ICE’s mission and ways to avoid detention.”

Similar deaths during immigration operations have triggered outrage and calls for additional investigations.

Last month in a Chicago suburb, federal immigration agents fatally shot a Mexican man during a traffic stop.

The DHS initially said a federal officer was “seriously injured,” but police body camera video showed the federal officer walking around and describing his own injuries as “nothing major.”

In July, a farmworker died after falling from a 30-foot-high roof during a chaotic immigration raid at a southern California marijuana farm.

In August, a man ran away from federal agents onto a freeway in the same state and was fatally struck by a vehicle.

With Post wires