Mexican illegal arrested in Murrysville carjacking attempt fond of U.S. life


By Richard Gazarik
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Saturday, April 10, 2010

Illegal immigrant Noe Tovar Baltazar knows that you can go home again.

His problem seems to be staying there.

At 23, he has been caught twice illegally entering the United States and voluntarily returned to Mexico, according to Murrysville police, who recently charged him with attempting to hijack a car outside a shopping center.

Both of those visits home were short-lived.

Three years ago, he paid a smuggler $2,000 to get him back into the United States a third time, he told police. Other U.S. connections eventually landed him work in Georgia, where he was arrested for drunken driving. Leaving that trouble behind, he headed north to a fresh start and a job chopping vegetables at a Chinese restaurant in Murrysville.

Baltazar's fortunes turned for the worse the night of March 18 when he left his job at the Jade Garden restaurant, got drunk and jumped into the front passenger seat of a young mother's car at the Villages of Murrysville plaza, authorities said.

The woman's 10-year-old daughter fought off Baltazar, kicking him and landing an elbow to his stomach, police said. He fled, and police began a search for the man with short-cropped dark hair and thin mustache. He was found crouched behind a Dumpster at the rear of the shopping center.

He's in the Westmoreland County Prison and faces deportation to Mexico once the criminal case against him is completed.

Officials from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement did not respond to calls seeking comment about the Baltazar case.

There are an estimated 140,000 illegal aliens working in Pennsylvania, according to the Federation of American Immigration Reform.

Federation spokesman Ira Mehlman said the government is reluctant to deport illegals unless they are charged with a violent crime.

"The Obama administration only deports violent felons at the exclusion of everybody else," Mehlman said. "The message is, you really need to do something awful. Unless you're really bad, they're really not going to deport you."

He said the government has claimed there has been a slight increase in deportations over the past several years but he said those figures include aliens who are caught and voluntarily return.

Like other illegal workers, Baltazar was living under the radar.

He settled into a small, nondescript brick house off Route 22 owned by Wendy Wang, who runs the Jade Garden.

The home is modestly furnished with a small refrigerator and microwave, a mattress on the floor and a nightstand holding a few personal items. A clothes line strung across the front porch holds articles of clothing hung out to dry.

By all accounts, Baltazar, who speaks no English, led a solitary existence.

But he was a good worker, Wang said.

The night of the alleged carjacking, he asked a cook at the restaurant for a ride home, but the cook was still working and couldn't leave, Wang said.

A short time later, Baltazar jumped into a car occupied by Rachael Reidel, 33, and her daughter, who had just left the Dancer's Closet at the Route 22 shopping center, according to an arrest warrant.

Baltazar tried to reach across the seat for the steering wheel or keys, said Murrysville police Officer Christopher Smith. But the girl screamed and kicked the slightly built Baltazar, who stands 5 feet, 3 inches tall and weighs 140 pounds, according to police. The mother and her daughter were not injured.

Wang said she hired Baltazar through a New York agency that refers foreign workers. She said she didn't know he is an illegal alien.

"He had identification," she said. "I don't know if it was real or not."

Wang said Baltazar had worked for her once before, quit to take a farm job in New York, then returned to Murrysville in February.

Wang staunchly defends her employee.

"He's a good kid," she said.

Wang employs other Mexicans, as well as Chinese workers she said are here legally.

"They are very hard workers, wonderful workers," said Wang, who came legally to the United States from China in 1976 and owns two restaurants.

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