Thread: How did illegal alien accused in fatal Salina hit-and-run remain here after visa expi

How did illegal alien accused in fatal Salina hit-and-run remain here after visa expired?

By Douglass Dowty
syracuse.com
on May 12, 2014 at 1:31 PM, updated May 12, 2014 at 2:58 PM

Syracuse, NY -- An Indian man here on an expired student visa was detained by federal agents after deputies said he killed a bicyclist during a hit-and-run crash early April 27 in Salina.

But how did Chiragkumar Patel remain in the country for two years after his visa expired, allowing him to reportedly be behind the wheel at the time of Michael Mahoney's death?

The answer is that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is not alerted when a foreign student's visa expires. In fact, foreign students can remain in the country on an expired visa if they remain enrolled in school, according to the ICE website.

Patel had been a student, but was no longer, he told Salina Town Court Justice Paul Carey. That triggered ICE to detain him, regardless of if he made the judge's $200,000 bail.

Patel was charged with felony leaving the scene of a fatal crash after the 2:40 a.m. crash on Electronics Parkway.

If Patel had stayed out of trouble, he might have remained undetected much longer.

That's because ICE prioritizes enforcement of student visas in this way:

• Those with connections or suspected connections to terrorism.
• Foreigners who have committed a crime.
• Recent border crossers.
• Egregious immigration law violators, such as those who have previously been removed from the country.

While ICE would not talk specifically about Patel's case, there are no reports that he fit any of those categories before the crash.

Patel came to the country legally as a student. He had a valid driver's license. He told the judge he was looking at applying to a Syracuse-area college.

With no system in place to alert authorities to those with expired visas who leave school, Patel flew under the radar.

That's not to say authorities don't keep track of foreign students. The Student and Exchange Visitor Information System keeps records of student visas. More than a million people enrolled in nine thousand schools are tracked in the database.

But the information is only as good as the efforts to update it. That's up to college officials and federal agents.

ICE field officers collaborate with academic institutions to update the data, which national security and law enforcement officials rely on.

But federal agents have to comb through the database looking for violators. Homeland Security Investigations is tasked with reviewing records for potential violators. And customs agents review student and school records to see if institutions are following federal law.

http://www.syracuse.com/news/index.s...fter_visa.html

Another American dead wrongfully because of American government inefficiency. there should be a penalty for the Director of the agency in oversight position. Maybe $100,000 paid to the victims family, and a penalty for the government = what would be fair, dereliction of duty for known 28 years, what is fair?