Thread: Mexican nat. sentenced for transporting illegal immigrants

http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascit ... 275341.htm

Mexican national sentenced for transporting illegal immigrants
JIM SUHR
Associated Press

EAST ST. LOUIS, Ill. - A federal judge on Tuesday ordered a Mexican national to spend nearly three years behind bars as a chronic border-crosser caught driving a van crammed with other illegal immigrants.

Gabriel Ortiz-Castaneda tearfully pleaded for leniency, saying through the interpreter he was in the U.S. to make a living to support his parents and his wife's family in Mexico and would never return to the U.S. if he was allowed to go home.

But U.S. District Judge David Herndon said Ortiz-Castaneda broke similar vows to other judges and entered the U.S. illegally at least two dozen times.

He sentenced Ortiz-Castaneda to two years and nine months in prison on each of 21 felony counts, with the terms to run simultaneously.

"His history and characteristics are particularly bad," Herndon said. "Not only is he here illegally, but he is helping other people (who are) illegal, so it is particularly serious."

A federal grand jury indicted Ortiz-Castaneda in March, 16 days after authorities said they found him near Collinsville, Ill., driving a van that had journeyed from Phoenix with 19 illegal immigrants from Mexico.

Ortiz-Castaneda pleaded guilty Sept. 1 to 19 counts of transporting illegal aliens and one count of illegally re-entering the United States - felonies each punishable by up to 10 years in prison and $25,000 in fines. He also admitted using someone else's Social Security card, a felony that carried a possible five-year prison sentence and $250,000 in fines.

In pleading guilty, Ortiz-Castaneda said he knew the van's occupants - many of them not wearing seat belts and sitting on the floorboards of a vehicle only equipped for nine passengers - were bound for Georgia and North Carolina to look for work.

The immigration status of the van's 19 occupants was not immediately clear Monday.

Tuesday's sentencing ended the latest U.S. legal scrape for Ortiz-Castaneda.

Twice in 2001, federal prosecutors in Arizona charged him with illegally re-entering the U.S., netting him a total of 16 days confinement.

He was charged with that federal misdemeanor again in March 2002 and spent another 10 days in jail before being arrested five months later with a felony re-entry count that again got him deported.

Ortiz-Castaneda's age was unclear. He has told authorities he is 30; federal immigration records list him as 34, a federal prosecutor said.

I am so impressed here, this man will be out in 9 months working the border and the victims before the new year is over.