http://www.elpasotimes.com/apps/pbcs.dl ... 00328/1001
Wednesday, July 20, 2005

'It was all about family'
Adoptions bring criminal convictions

Louie Gilot
El Paso Times

Noe Aleman had a comfortable life -- a career with the Border Patrol, a long marriage and a house on the West Side.

Measured against those standards, his teenage nieces in Mexico had very little. They lived with their widowed mother in a rancho, or farming community, in the state of Tamaulipas, and they cleaned houses to make ends meet. Every time the Alemans would visit, the girls would beg their uncle, "Tio, can I go with you?" he said.

"We'd get into the truck to leave, and they'd be in the back seat," Aleman recalled.

So Aleman and his wife, Isabel, decided to adopt the three girls, with their mother's consent, to give them a future in the United States.

But a year later, Noe Aleman has been convicted of immigration fraud, lost his job as a Border Patrol agent and depleted his savings. His oldest niece returned to Mexico for fear of being arrested. The two youngest are locked up at the juvenile immigration detention center in Canutillo, awaiting deportation.

"I wish they would let us take (the girls) back (to Mexico). At this point they'd be better off in the rancho," Isabel Aleman said recently, sitting on the girls' double bed where their school clothes were still laid out. "That's why we brought them -- to go to school and have a better life. So they don't get pregnant at 15. They are so bright. They were not brought over here to be put through this nightmare."

Noe Aleman, 41, faces up to 15 years in prison and up to $750,000 in fines for the convictions -- conspiracy to defraud the United States and two counts of alien smuggling. He will be sentenced July 26. He said he would appeal his conviction.

Officials at the U.S. attorney's office tell a different story from the Alemans' version.

They called the Alemans' adoption a "ruse."

First, they said, Noe Aleman coached the girls to lie about their ages so the oldest, who appeared to have been older than 18 at the time, could be adopted as a juvenile and become a legal resident of the United States. Court documents showed that when an immigration officer asked one of the girls how old she was, she asked "whether the agent wanted her 'Mexican birth date or American one.' "

Officials said Noe Aleman also told authorities that the girls' father was dead, but one girl had a different father, whose whereabouts are unknown. Finally, officials said, Aleman tried to get an immigration permit for the girls after the adoption was completed and told officers the girls were in Mexico. The girls actually lived without the proper papers in El Paso with the Alemans and went to Coronado High School.

On June 15, 2004, Noe Aleman was called to the immigration offices on Hawkins Boulevard under the pretense of picking up visas for his daughters and was arrested. The girls were jailed as well for two weeks and released to a family friend in El Paso.

A year later, two of them are back behind bars. And while the adoption still stands, it won't help this immigration quandary.

Noe Aleman's lawyers did not return phone calls, and the girls' lawyer declined to comment so as not to jeopardize the case.

Aleman denied he knowingly presented false testimony and said he just followed the advice of multiple lawyers.

What worked against Aleman's credibility, according to court reports, is that as a 10-year veteran of the Border Patrol, he should have had a "working familiarity with" immigration requirements.

Aleman was fired from the agency after his conviction.

Government officials said they became interested in Aleman's adoption because of past allegations of sexual abuse made against him by two Guatemalan women in 1996. The case did not lead to criminal charges, a civil suit was dismissed, and Aleman got his job back at that time, court documents show.

"I have some concerns about him having exposure to (the girls) and about why he brought these women or young -- whatever they are -- into his home," U.S. Assistant Attorney Debra Kanof testified in court July 13, 2004.

Aleman denies the allegations.

"We never got into this adoption for fraud or whatever they thought we were going to do with these girls. It was all about family," he said.

Louie Gilot may be reached at lgilot@elpasotimes.com, 546-6131.