Illegal Immigrant Charged With Sex Assault Asks to be Deported to Avoid Charges
Monday, January 22, 2007


Jose Vallejo entered the United States illegally three years ago. He's now being charged with sexually abusing a four-year-old girl but instead of serving a possible 30-year prison sentence here in the United States, he may be heading back to Mexico.

Prosecutors in Illinois say Vallejo, a Mexican national, pinned his victim girl down on a bed then molested her. While free on bond, Vallejo asked a federal immigration judge to deport him. The request was granted and a deportation date was set for earlier this month.

But before he was put over the border, federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials alerted prosecutors in McHenry County, Ill.

Click here to visit FOXNews.com's Immigration Center

"Its kind of terrifying to know that someone who has violated a four-year-old, sexually violated, would be washed from the system all of the sudden, he would escape from our country here and it'd be over," said state attorney Lou Bianchi.

Bianchi said a number of things could be added to courtrooms to give immigration judges tools to determine if someone before them has criminal charges pending, which could decide whether or not they stay in the United States to face charges.


"If they have a monitor, at least someone in the courtroom is watching the monitor and all of the sudden it would flash up on the screen that this man is wanted or he's got at least outstanding charges so that the appropriate authority like in this case," Bianchi said. "Our office could be notified so that we could take the proper precautions to make sure that these type of illegal aliens who commit crimes are not deported immediately so that we can prosecute them."

Vallejo's attorney however, argued in court that the deportation order should stand, saying, "their law is supreme over the state laws. They are the ones that have taken him into custody. They are the ones that will conduct any further actions."

But a county judge ruled against Vallejo, upping his bond from $150,000 to $750,000 to prevent his deportation.

ICE characterizes this case as textbook, stressing that red flags were raised after the immigration judge's deportation order.

But immigration watchdogs say laws must be changed to ensure immigration judges are informed of pending criminal charges. Currently, these federal judges don't take criminal charges into account, unless that's the reason for the illegal immigrant's deportation hearing.

"The system should work in a way that the only people who go before an immigration judge who have committed some sort of crime has already served their time for that crime," said Jack Martin, special projects director for the Federation for American Immigration Reform. "In other words, they should not heave people coming before them that are involved in another judicial proceeding until that proceedings is completed."

Martin said the number of cases of this type is increasing with the illegal immigrant population in the United States; case loads of this type are growing by about 500,000 a year, and there are currently between 11 and 13 million — with some estimates saying as many as 20 million — people in the United States illegally.

Now that he'll be in the United States for awhile, Vallejo has requested a jury trial. His next court date is scheduled for March 2.

FOX News' Jeff Goldblatt contributed to this report.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,245539,00.html