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Thursday, June 8, 2006
Car deal turns sour for suspect

By Paul A. Long
Post staff report



Hugo Garcia said he thought he was going to complete paperwork to buy the car he already had paid $6,000 for.

Instead, when he arrived in Boone County on Tuesday, he found himself confronted by immigration agents, who took the Mexican national into custody on a charge that he had illegally entered the United States.

Garcia believes the man who was selling him the car turned him in.

Through an interpreter, Garcia told his story Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Covington, as he was arraigned amid another wave of immigrants pleading guilty to being in the U.S. illegally.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Bob McBride declined to comment on Garcia's story, or to say whether his arrest was connected to an ongoing investigation into the use of undocumented workers in the Northern Kentucky home building industry. But he did assure U.S. Magistrate Judge J. Gregory Wehrman that the government had nothing to do with the car sale.

"The United States did not seize the vehicle," he said.

Garcia's court-appointed attorney, Mike Ruberg, said if the story checks out and his client is out both the car and the money, he will encourage Garcia to report the crime.

Unfortunately, said Gil Esparza of the Hispanic Resource Center in Covington, Garcia's story of being taken advantage of because of his status is not unusual.

"It happens two to three times a week," Esparza said.

"Many people take advantage of us. It's been happening for years. When this immigration sweep took place, people were looking for ways to take advantage of our people."

Esparza said he tries to intervene in such situations. If it's an employer declining to pay his workers, Esparza said he'll have a "heart-to-heart" talk with him and threaten to bring the matter up before the Department of Labor. If it's a company that took money from a consumer without delivering the goods, he'll threaten legal action.

And if it's a case of potential fraud by a company or individual, he'll report it to the authorities.

"Regardless of whether an individual is undocumented or not, you can't treat them unjustly. Even undocumented people have rights," he said.

Wednesday, six more of those arrested in the raids in May on Fischer Homes building sites in Boone County pleaded guilty to being in the United States illegally, but at least two of them are hoping to stay.

Marvin Omar Avila, a native of Honduras, and Bernal Gumercindo-Nolasco, a Mexican citizen, want a hearing, which normally take place in Chicago.

Ruberg, their attorney, said both been have been in the United States for years, and both have wives and children who are U.S. citizens. They hope to persuade the immigration hearing officer to grant them a waiver and a green card.

Avila has been in the United States since 1996, Gumercindo-Nolasco since 1999.

Normally, a person in the United States without documentation cannot "get legal," legal experts say, but there are exceptions and waivers.

Esparza thinks they might have a shot, if they have clean records. The hearing officers will take into account their family background and the length of time they have spent in the country, he said.

"They do have hearts," Esparza said of immigration officials.