Thread: Tijeras MVD office was well known destination for illegals

http://www.abqtrib.com

Tijeras MVD office was well known
By Maggie Shepard
Tribune Reporter
September 1, 2006

Since February, tiny Tijeras has been the destination for undocumented immigrants from as far away as Kansas searching for someone to unquestioningly issue them a state driver's license.

Vanloads of immigrants found a sympathetic 23-year-old woman working as a clerk at the state Motor Vehicle Division office in the village of Tijeras.

Bernalillo County Sheriff's Department detectives and an MVD audit say she issued driver's licenses to at least 100 undocumented immigrants.

The last five to benefit from her help arrived Tuesday. They were stopped by an electrician working on Tijeras' new village government hall.

A.J. Wood, 23, said his crew would watch as a van with out-of-state license plates, with five to 10 men inside, parked in the lot. He'd watch as they walked, one by one, into the office, just east of the main intersection in Tijeras.

Other construction workers told Wood the vehicle and similar vans had been visiting the office for about a year.

On Tuesday, he and a co-worker stopped the van and held the occupants until sheriff's deputies arrived.

"In the climate in this county you don't know who you're dealing with," Bernalillo County sheriff's Detective Bill Webb said of Wood's actions. "Fortunately for him, these guys were just trying to survive and live and provide for their families."

The men, all from Guatemala, told Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents that they needed the licenses to get work in Kansas, according to federal court documents.

They spent between $10 and $700 to buy Social Security cards and birth certificates from unknown people in Liberal, Kans., according to the court documents.

Webb said those people directed the men to travel 366 miles from the town in southwest Kansas to Tijeras and find the clerk.

The men are now in federal custody facing deportation and charges of illegal possession of false documents.


The suspects
One of the five males taken into federal custody Tuesday during a bust in Tijeras was a juvenile and immediately deported to his native Guatemala.

The other four, also from Guatemala, are in federal custody. All were carrying documents bought in Liberal, Kan. They face federal charges of possessing fraudulent documents. They are:

Jacinto Alfredo Vicente, 25, refused an interview with Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.

Nicolas Ciprian-De La Cruz, 29, told ICE agents he spent $10 for a birth certificate from Puerto Rico, a Social Security card and an ID card from Arkansas bearing the name Luis Angel Natal.

Margarito Ortiz-Lorenzo, 32, told agents he spent $50 on a birth certificate from Puerto Rico and Social Security card with the name Georgie Gonzalez Soto.

Virgilio Cornelio Lopez-Tzunux, 24, told agents he spent $700 on his documents, including a birth certificate issued by Texas, a Social Security card and a New Mexico identification card bearing the name Oscar R. Peña III.

Source: Criminal complaints from U.S. District Court in Albuquerque

Look who's stealing our identities! Thanks Tijeras, NM!

Dixie