Thread: 2 dead in Kern County after vehicle overturns while fleeing ICE agents

By BRITTNY MEJIA
MAR 14, 2018 | 9:55 PM

The SUV had pulled over after a car activated its emergency lights behind it. But when federal immigration agents got out of the car, the undocumented couple in the SUV drove away, police said. They would end up dying in a fatal crash in the city of Delano.

Officers dispatched to the scene shortly before 7 a.m. Tuesday found the SUV on its roof with two people inside, the Delano Police Department said in a statement.

Authorities said the vehicle was heading west on Cecil Avenue at a high rate of speed when it drifted onto the dirt shoulder and the driver lost control. The SUV then struck a utility pole and overturned before coming to rest.

Santos Hilario Garcia, 35, and Marcelina Garcia Profecto, 33, were declared dead at the scene.

The Police Department said it was investigating the crash and had no further comment.

According to ICE, Hilario was not the person the agency was looking for, though he matched the target's description.

ICE spokeswoman Lori Haley said late Wednesday that deportation officers arrived at the home and saw a man get into a car. When they stopped the car and tried to contact the driver, the driver sped off, she said. Officers later came across the overturned vehicle and called local authorities.

Hilario, who was convicted in 2014 of driving under the influence, was voluntarily returned to Mexico three times between 2008 and 2017, Haley said. Garcia had no prior encounters with ICE.

The couple had been in the U.S since 2003, and were in the country illegally, according to the United Farm Workers of America. The farmworkers leave behind six children — the oldest 18 and youngest 8. The oldest daughter has a 1-year-old baby.

"Yesterday was an extremely sad day. We express our sincerest condolences to the family," said Arturo Rodriguez, UFW president.

The couple had been looking for work earlier in the day, Rodriguez said. "At some point ICE tried to detain them. Once the family realized it was ICE, they got scared, more than likely, and took off.... Now the six children are left without any parents as a result of these aggressive actions by ICE."

At least 26 Kern County farmworkers were detained earlier this month as part of a mass sweep across Central and Northern California that immigration officials said targeted convicted criminals.

Many of the farmworkers appeared to have no serious criminal background and were stopped on their way to work by immigration officers in unmarked vehicles, said Armando Elenes, a vice president of UFW, which has been trying to document how many people have been detained.

A total of 232 people were arrested in the statewide operation targeting "individuals who pose a threat to national security, public safety and border security," according to a statement from ICE. The four-day sweep stretched from Bakersfield to the Oregon border.

Of those arrested, 180 were either convicted criminals, had been issued a final order of removal or had been previously removed from the United States and returned illegally, ICE authorities said. One hundred fifteen had prior felony convictions for serious offenses — such as child sex crimes, weapons charges and assault — or had past convictions for significant or multiple misdemeanors, ICE said.

Following Tuesday's fatal crash, the ACLU of Southern California said in a statement that in recent weeks it had "received numerous reports from Kern County and other parts of the Central Valley of ICE staking out the roads farmworkers travel to get to work and pulling them over during early morning hours without any lawful basis, resulting in numerous unlawful arrests of residents."

The ACLU says ICE would often pull farmworkers over in unmarked vehicles and that drivers and passengers believed the officers were local police, according to Jennie Pasquarella, director of immigrants' rights at the ACLU of Southern California.

"This incident demonstrates just how dangerous ICE's unlawful practices are to our communities," Pasquarella said. "This horrible tragedy is the direct result of ICE's inhumane tactics and the fear it provokes in hardworking people who stand to lose everything if they are deported."

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/l...314-story.html

"The couple had been in the U.S since 2003, and were in the country illegally, according to the United Farm Workers of America. The farmworkers leave behind six children — the oldest 18 and youngest 8. The oldest daughter has a 1-year-old baby."

----------------------------------------

Hand their children over into the CARE & CUSTODY of their Embassy. The parents are both illegal aliens.

Mexico's law says that if their citizens give birth on foreign soil...then their offspring ARE citizens of Mexico.

Use that "loophole" to fast track deport them!

Deport them out of here into the hands of Mexico and their relatives to care for them!

They have no one to blame but themselves. I have no pity for them.

ICE has different authority than a traffic cop. They have the right to ask for papers, that's why the law makes it a crime for immigrants not to have their papers on them at all times.

Kern County prosecutors won't charge ICE agents involved in crash that killed 2 farmworkers

By BRITTNY MEJIA
APR 18, 2018 | 10:15 AM
| DELANO, CALIF.

Kern County prosecutors on Wednesday said they will not file charges against federal immigration agents involved in a crash that killed two farmworkers trying to flee from the agents.

The two Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, Ramiro Sanchez and Dimas Benitez, faced misdemeanor charges of giving false information to police after statements they made to Delano officers were contradicted by surveillance video.

"There is no credible evidence that either agent lied," said Kern County Dist. Atty. Lisa Green. "And second, I do not believe legally … we can pursue charges of giving false information to a peace officer."

Sanchez and Benitez came under scrutiny after the March 13 crash that killed Santos Hilario Garcia and Marcelina Garcia Profecto. The couple, who were in the country illegally, had initially stopped when one of the agents put on his emergency lights to pull them over, but then fled before crashing into a utility pole at high speed.

According to a report, an ICE deportation officer told police that, after the initial stop, he was not in "pursuit with emergency lights/sirens." But surveillance video showed the immigration officers' cars traveling in the same direction as the couple's vehicle with their emergency lights activated.

"As to the lights, which were on, it is a reasonable interpretation of the evidence that the emergency lights that were activated for the traffic stop remained on after he jumped in his vehicle to follow the Ford," Green said.

Sanchez, one of the deportation officers, told police that on the morning of the crash, he and colleagues were conducting surveillance on an apartment in order to detain Celestino Hilario-Garcia, who was targeted for removal from the country.

Sanchez said that a colleague witnessed Santos Hilario Garcia, whom they mistook for Celestino Hilario-Garcia, enter a vehicle in front of the apartment, along with a woman and a girl.

Sanchez and Benitez followed the car in black, unmarked Jeeps as the couple dropped their daughter off at school. Shortly afterward, Sanchez activated his emergency lights to signal the car to pull over.

Santos Hilario Garcia complied, but as Sanchez got out of his car, the couple's vehicle sped away, the report said, and eventually crashed. Garcia, 35, and, Profecto, 33, both died at the scene.

Though Garcia matched the description of the arrest target, he was not the same individual, according to ICE.

Santos Hilario Garcia had been convicted in 2014 of driving under the influence and was voluntarily returned to Mexico three times between 2008 and 2017. Last year, he was removed under the provisions of expedited removal. Profecto had no prior encounters with ICE.

In an earlier statement, the immigration agency cited sanctuary policies that "have pushed ICE out of jails" and "force our officers to conduct more enforcement in the community — which poses increased risks for law enforcement and the public."

"It also increases the likelihood that ICE will encounter other illegal aliens who previously weren't on our radar," ICE spokesman Richard Rocha said.

The case came amid rising tension between local agencies and ICE in California, as officials and police have to choose whether they will cooperate more with the immigration agency or abide by the state's "sanctuary" laws, intended to protect immigrants in the country illegally.

Alvizo has stressed that in referring the case to the district attorney, his department was only trying to do its "due diligence."

"It's not any different than say, for example, you were involved in a traffic accident and there was some issues there. We're going to send it to our D.A.," Alvizo said in an interview last week. "Because we don't want anybody to come back and say that we're hiding or we're trying to cover up for anybody. We're doing it the way we do it for anybody else."

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/l...418-story.html