The Guatemalan citizen charged Monday in the fiery death of a woman on the F train in Brooklyn was deported from the United States six years ago, only to re-enter the country at a later date, an immigration official said – and customs authorities.

Sebastian Zapeta, 33, who was deported to Guatemala by ICE on June 7, 2018, re-entered the U.S. at an unknown date and location and then made his way to New York City, said Jeff Carter, an ICE spokesman , in a statement.

Zapeta is now charged with first- and second-degree murder and arson, in a case that is drawing renewed attention to subway safety, illegal immigration and helping those in need in the subway system.

The woman killed in the attack has not yet been identified. NYPD officials said they were still trying to determine whether she was sleeping on the subway and whether she was homeless.

Authorities said a man set a woman on fire at the Stillwell Avenue train station around 7:30 a.m. Sunday. The attacker is said to have set her clothing on fire with a lighter, after which the flames quickly spread throughout the subway carriage. Despite the efforts of officers and an MTA employee to extinguish the fire, the woman was pronounced dead at the scene.

NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch said three “high school age” students recognized the man from photos police released in the hours after the attack, leading to the arrest. Authorities said Zapeta had a lighter when he was taken into custody.

Little is known about Zapeta’s time in New York, but a spokesman for Mayor Eric Adams said Zapeta arrived before the influx of immigrants that began in spring 2022 and that he was in and out of city housing during that time .

According to authorities, Zapeta’s last known address was on Forbell Avenue in East New York, a location associated with a substance abuse treatment facility.

Given reports that the defendant had no serious criminal contact with police before Sunday’s violence, it is unlikely that he would have landed on the radar of federal immigration authorities sooner.

New York’s so-called “sanctuary city” protections for undocumented immigrants largely prohibit local government officials from sharing information or otherwise cooperating with ICE officials unless the crime is serious, violent, there is a warrant, and only after a conviction.

Carter, the ICE spokesman, said federal law enforcement and deportation officials will file an immigration detention application with the city seeking custody of Zapeta.

“You tell them that once this person goes through your criminal trial and is convicted, we are interested. Please hand them over to us,” said Muzaffar Chishti, senior fellow and director of the Migration Policy Institute office at York University’s New Faculty of Law.

“This is such a clear case that there is no doubt that it will be handed over,” Chishti said. “It’s not a gray area.”

But, he said, that would almost certainly only happen after a conviction.

“Unless the federal government is interested in only deporting people who haven’t even been convicted yet,” Chishti said. “That would be extremely unusual.”

Chishti noted that the problem of crime by undocumented immigrants has figured into local and national debates about immigration, even though there is evidence that immigrants are far less likely to commit crimes than native-born residents.

But Guardian Angels founder Curtis Sliwa, a longtime community activist and Republican mayoral candidate who has previously criticized the city’s sanctuary protections and Adams’ handling of the migrant crisis and often linked illegal immigration to crime, downplayed any connection between the two in the violence on Sunday.

The problem is inadequate health care, he said.

“Whether it should have been (in the US) or not, if you set someone on fire and watch them burn like a pyromaniac and you seem to get a vicarious thrill, then emotionally you are a ‘It’s a disturbed person’ said Sliva.

He added: “The subways are full of emotionally disturbed people who need psychiatric help.