Illegal immigrants 13% of Prince William DUI arrests

By: Emily Babay
Examiner Staff Writer
August 6, 2010

In Prince William County, 13 percent of people arrested on drunken driving charges last year were illegal immigrants, according to police statistics.

Such arrests have been in the spotlight this week, after an illegal alien was charged in a drunken driving crash in the county Sunday that killed a Benedictine nun and seriously injured two others.

Carlos A. Martinelly Montano, 23, was charged with drunken driving, involuntary manslaughter and felony driving on a revoked license. He had two previous DUI convictions and had been detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, but was released pending a deportation hearing.

Sister Denise Mosier died in the crash.

According to Prince William County police, 2,138 people were arrested for DUI there in 2009. Of those, 286 -- 13 percent of those accused of the charge -- were illegal immigrants.

Data for other area jurisdictions is not available because their police departments said they do not obtain the immigration status of people arrested. Prince William police began doing so in July 2008.

The percentage of illegal immigrants in Prince William being arrested on drunken driving charges is higher than for most other crimes. In total, 6 percent of people arrested on criminal charges in Prince William County in 2009 were illegal immigrants.

It's difficult to tell how those figures compare to illegal immigrants' proportion in the general population. No firm data exists on the illegal immigrant population in Prince William.

An interim report on the county police's illegal-immigration policy cited a 2007 study that estimated that illegal immigrants accounted for about 7 percent to 8 percent of the county's population.

The 13 percent of DUI arrests who are illegal immigrants is likely higher than their proportion in the population "by any reasonable estimate," said Tom Guterbock, director of the Center for Survey Research at the University of Virginia.

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