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Federal officials: undocumented immigrants usually deported after serving time for serious crimes


Sunday, July 16, 2006

By Mónica Ortiz Uribe

Tribune-Herald staff writer

Illegal immigrants convicted of a serious or violent crime in the United States are unlikely to ever step onto this country’s soil as free U.S. citizens.

Under immigration law, crimes such as murder, sexual assault or abuse, child pornography and drug trafficking are aggravated felonies. A person convicted of an aggravated felony is barred for life from being a legal resident or citizen in the United States, said Nina Pruneda, a spokeswoman with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Last month two Mexia men, illegal immigrants from Mexico and Honduras, were arrested in connection with the June 28 rape and kidnapping of an 18-year-old Tehuacana woman in Limestone County.

Although here illegally, Javier Guzman Martinez, 18, and Noel Darwin Hernandez, 22, have the right to a fair trial in the United States.

Pruneda said undocumented immigrants go through the criminal justice system like any American citizen. That includes the right to legal representation through a hired or court-appointed attorney.

Both suspects in the Limestone County case have a court-appointed attorney, Sheriff Dennis Wilson said.

But convicted illegal immigrants’ paths diverge from their fellow prisoners’ after they serve their sentences.

Instead of walking out as free men and women, they remain in the custody of U.S. immigration officials. ICE then requests a removal hearing to consider expelling the immigrant from the country.

Hernandez and Martinez are a long way from deportation. Each is held in lieu of a total of $2 million bond on an aggravated kidnapping and an aggravated sexual assault charge at the Limestone County Detention Center. A federal immigration hold is keeping them in jail, even if they pay their bonds.

A grand jury has yet to consider whether to indict the two on formal charges. Limestone County District Attorney Roy DeFriend said the investigation is in an early stage and he didn’t know when a trial would be set. If convicted of the first-degree felonies, both men could face life in prison, he said.

Right to appeal

Elaine Komis, public affairs specialist for the Executive Office of Immigration Review, said aggravated felons go through the same removal process as noncriminal aliens, with the same rights to appeal court decisions. The office, part of the U.S. Department of Justice handles removal hearings.

According to ICE statistics, last year about 167,700 undocumented immigrants were deported from the United States Just more than half of those were convicted criminals.

Pruneda said ICE doesn’t keep regional or state deportation statistics.

DeFriend said his office has not kept track of how many cases involving illegal immigrants are heard in Limestone County.

Jerri Handy, a Mexia resident who runs a dry cleaning business, said she had little concern for the men’s immigration status.

“It doesn’t matter if they are legal or illegal, those men shouldn’t be out there walking our streets,” she said.

mortiz@wacotrib.com

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