ICE keeps a list they call the "Worst of the Worst," and a Cuban national named Castillo just made it. You don't want your name on that list, and given his rap sheet, he earned the spot.

ICE detained Castillo in Miami, according to a CiberCuba report published October 11. His record includes convictions for attempted murder and aggravated assault. Attempted murder is exactly the kind of conviction that puts a man at the top of any enforcement queue, and for once the queue worked the way it's supposed to.

For readers who don't eat DHS press releases for breakfast like I do, a quick word on how this works. ICE prioritizes arrests by severity of criminal history. Convicted killers, rapists, and child predators go first. It's called targeted enforcement, and it's the reason the agency exists. A man convicted of attempted murder is not a "community member living in the shadows," whatever the advocacy crowd wants to call him. He's a convicted violent felon who had no business walking around Miami in the first place.

The "Worst of the Worst" designation matters for another reason. DHS publishes these names and faces so the public can see exactly who is being removed. It also puts pressure on the system. When a name goes on that list, every bureaucrat between the arrest and the deportation flight knows people are watching. Cases don't quietly disappear into the paperwork. After years of enforcement leads sitting untouched, a little public sunlight on this process is overdue.

Cuban nationals present their own wrinkle in the count. For decades, the Cuban Adjustment Act made removals complicated, and in my view plenty of convicted Cuban criminals got a better deal than they deserved off that technicality. Enforcement has tightened considerably, and cases like Castillo's suggest the old safe harbor is gone. A violent conviction now gets you a detainer and a removal proceeding like everybody else, the way it always should have.

A detainer, for those unfamiliar, is the hold ICE places with a local jail asking them to hold an individual for up to 48 hours so agents can pick them up. In a sane world, every jurisdiction honors detainers. The ones that refuse are how convicted felons end up back on the street and back in the news.

What happens next for Castillo is the standard track as these cases usually go: custody while removal proceedings move forward, with criminal convictions weighing heavily in ICE's priorities. Bond outcomes in immigration court depend on the individual case, but a violent felony record doesn't exactly help a man's argument. The system is slow. With his name on a public list, slow is the worst of his problems.

I spent 26 years watching guys like this cycle through. Every one taken off the board is one fewer violent felon sharing a city with the rest of us. Add Castillo to the column.

The scoreboard: one attempted murderer detained, one name on the list, one seat reserved on a flight. Clean work.