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Illegal immigrant pleads guilty
Friday, July 14, 2006
BY BILL SAVITSKY JR.
For The Patriot-News
SCRANTON - An illegal immigrant from Mexico could receive up to 5 years in prison and be deported after he pleaded guilty Wednesday in federal court to transporting 13 other illegal Mexican immigrants in Hazleton in May.

Juaquine F. Robledo-Salas, age unavailable, pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge William J. Nealon in Scranton to harboring illegals, a felony.

Court officials said state police on May 17 stopped Robledo-Sablas in Hazleton for a traffic violation, and a check with federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement revealed he had been deported to Mexico in 2004 for being in the United States illegally. Police said they found 13 other illegal immigrants from Mexico in his van.

Robledo-Salas told the court he was driving the van to pay off a $1,500 debt for help he said he received from a man to illegally return to the U.S. in February.

ICE officials in Philadelphia and Washington, D.C., yesterday said they had no immediate information about the case or the people discovered in the van with Robledo-Salas.