Thread: Former Milwaukee Policeman to be Deported for Faking Identit

Former Milwaukee Policeman to be Deported for Faking Identity

MILWAUKEE (AP) — A former Milwaukee police officer who stole his dead cousin’s identity to get on the force faces deportation to his native Mexico, but he won’t have to do any prison time.

A judge in U.S. District Court gave 25-year-old Oscar Ayala-Cornejo a year of probation for falsely representing himself as a U.S. citizen, even though he actually is an illegal immigrant.

He was charged after an anonymous tip led the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to him.

He had been on the force about three and a half years when he was arrested last May. He agreed to a plea deal about two weeks later and was fired from the department in June.

In court yesterday, Ayala apologized to his family, friends, the community and the police department.

He says he looks forward to starting a new life in Mexico, where he plans to live with family members and possibly study computer engineering.

It’s not clear when immigration officials will deport him. Once deported, he can never return.
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http://www.wyowtv34.com/News/index.php?ID=18541

December 22, 2007
Dream Turns Nightmare: Milwaukee Police Officer to Be Deported
By CATRIN EINHORN
MILWAUKEE — Growing up here, Oscar Ayala-Cornejo recalls, he played chess and devoured comics, hung out at the mall and joined the Junior Reserve Officers Training Corps. After high school, he realized a childhood dream, joining the Milwaukee Police Department.

But when Mr. Ayala-Cornejo filled out recruitment papers, he used the name of a dead relative who had been a United States citizen. He had to, Mr. Ayala-Cornejo says, because ever since his parents brought him here from Mexico when he was 9, he has lived in the country illegally.

The life that Mr. Ayala-Cornejo carefully built here, including more than five years with the police force, is to end at noon on Saturday, when, heeding a deportation order, he will board a plane bound for the country he left as a child.

In May, acting on an anonymous tip, immigration agents arrested him on charges of falsely representing himself as a citizen. He pleaded guilty, and is now permanently barred from the United States.

“I’m going to be saying goodbye to my family, my friends, my city — everything that I know,â€