AL - Last of 4 cousins pleads guilty to immigration fraud; all plan to seek asylum
By Brendan Kirby
on December 18, 2012 at 1:27 PM, updated December 18, 2012 at 5:00 PM
al.com
MOBILE, Alabama – A Honduran man today became the last of four cousins to plead guilty to using fraudulent identification to evade immigration background checks at a Satsuma company that was performing work at the Port of Mobile.
After the plea, U.S. District Judge Kristi DuBose immediately sentenced Nelson Lopez-Chinchilla to the time he has been in jail since his arrest. He will be turned over, along with cousins Marvin Unelin Villeda-Chinchilla, Hector Obed Villeda-Chinchilla and Orlis Villeda-Chinchilla to U.S. immigration authorities for possible deportation.
Lawyers for the defendants have said their clients plan to pursue asylum on grounds that their lives will be in danger if they return to their homeland.
Lopez-Chinchilla is “going to do the same thing,” defense attorney Art Powell said.
Attorneys for the defendants have said the men came to the United States to flee a criminal gang that was extorting their family. Two family members have been murdered, according the attorney for Marvin Villeda-Chinchilla.
Powell said the men have been “threatened and all sorts of bad things.”
Mavely Santos, who identified herself as the fiancée of Orlis Villeda-Chinchilla, sent a tweet saying that he and his cousins will be in danger if they go back home.
“They are not bad people they were hidding from back home,” she wrote. “I pray each night so they can stay specially orlis.”
All four men have pleaded guilty to use of identity documents to evade immigration requirements. They admitted to buying fake IDs in Louisiana, where they obtained IDs made from the information of real people whose identities had been stolen.
The men submitted those IDs to their employer, U.S. Coatings, which ran them through the federal government’s E-Verify system.
It is the same company where five other illegal immigrants were working earlier this year. Authorities brought charges against them, convicting four of them. The fifth fled the area.
Those men all were tied to a case in Missouri in which a group was making identification with fraudulent information for thousands of illegal immigrants across the country.
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Last of 4 cousins pleads guilty to immigration fraud; all plan to seek asylum | al.com
