U.S. attorney defends immigration prosecutions

John Murphy responds to federal judge who questioned cost of pursuing charges rather than deportation.

U.S. Judge Sam Sparks said prosecution wasteful.

By Steven Kreytak

Updated: 9:07 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 23, 2010

Published: 8:22 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 23, 2010


U.S. Attorney John Murphy fired back Tuesday against Austin federal Judge Sam Sparks' recent accusations that seeking criminal convictions against some illegal immigrants is a waste of taxpayer money.

In a court filing, Murphy wrote that the three Mexican citizens whose criminal prosecution prompted questions from Sparks had long defied authorities.

Each had been deported multiple times before recent arrests in Travis County of driving while intoxicated. One of them, Murphy wrote, had previously been convicted of burglary of a vehicle.

Officials, Murphy wrote, "have chosen less costly means of dealing with each of these defendants on prior occasions, and in response, the defendants have returned unlawfully and engaged in serious criminal conduct."

Immigration officers working at the Travis County Jail found each of the men — Juan Ordones-Soto, 29, Ignacio Ontiveros-Vasquez, 35, and Angel Hernandez-Garcia, 30 — last fall, according to court documents.

Though many of those identified at the jail are deported after their state cases are completed, the Mexican men are among a subgroup who are regularly transferred to federal custody and charged with illegal re-entry by a deported alien, a federal felony.

Each pleaded guilty and was sentenced by Sparks on Feb. 4 to time already served.

In a Feb. 5 order that caught the attention of many in the national immigration debate, Sparks wrote that "like many of the defendants prosecuted under the (federal illegal re-entry law) in the last six months," the men "have no significant history."

Sparks noted that as of the date of his order, it had cost more than $13,350 to jail the three men, plus the time to prosecute them.

"The expenses of prosecuting illegal entry and re-entry cases (rather than deportation) on aliens without any significant criminal history is simply mind-boggling," Sparks wrote in an order that immigration lawyers called unique.

Sparks ordered prosecutors to state the reasons for prosecuting the men and to be prepared in court to state the reasons for similar prosecutions in the future.

In his filing, Murphy argued that under the constitutional separation of powers, judges may not interfere with U.S. attorneys' control over criminal prosecutions except in cases where prosecutors act clearly contrary to the public interest.

However, Murphy wrote that because Sparks raised the question, "the government believes that some on-the-record discussion about the rationale for prosecuting these and similar immigration cases serves the public interest."

Murphy noted that under the federal Criminal Alien Program, immigration officers have for decades scoured county jails for illegal immigrants subject to removal from the United States.

He noted that in the past, most of those prosecuted for illegal re-entry in Austin had been previously convicted of one of a list of aggravated felonies under federal law. Such felonies include murder, rape and drug trafficking.

In recent years, Murphy wrote, prosecutions of the illegal re-entry law were expanded to include "a wide spectrum of violators."

He said the expansion was part of a wider immigration enforcement effort in the Western District of Texas, which includes Austin and a broad swath of the U.S.-Mexico border.

In the cases of the three recently prosecuted Mexican men, Murphy wrote that Ordones-Soto had been apprehended in this country at least six times and convicted of burglary of a vehicle; Ontiveros-Vasquez was apprehended at least eight times; and Hernandez-Garcia was apprehended at least twice, and when he was arrested in Austin recently, he had a blood alcohol level twice the legal limit.

Murphy "does not believe that any of these defendants merits leniency," he wrote. "Nor does the undersigned believe measuring these prosecutions in terms of costs ... dictates a different outcome."

skreytak@statesman.com


http://www.statesman.com/news/local/u-s ... news_36716