Discrepancies in illegal immigrant's applications for Dallas County deputy led to her arrest

10:32 PM CDT on Wednesday, July 14, 2010
By KEVIN KRAUSE / The Dallas Morning News
kkrause@dallasnews.com

Despite being in the U.S. illegally for the past 12 years, Maria Elvia Ross was able to obtain a temporary work permit, get a job as a Dallas County sheriff's jailer and avoid detection by her supervisors for several years even though she provided them inconsistent answers about her citizenship, records show.

That came to an end when Ross, 34, applied for deputy in January for the third time since her hiring in 2001 and presented a work permit that had expired in 2005.

A criminal background check conducted last month as part of the application process turned up her November 1998 arrest in Laredo and deportation by U.S. immigration officials. When questioned about it, Ross lied to a personnel sergeant, according to records released Wednesday by the department.

Ross was arrested at work last week by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers and faces deportation for a second time. She resigned from the department Tuesday.

In her 2001 application to the Sheriff's Department, Ross didn't list her 1998 arrest and deportation. She indicated on the application that she had lived in Texas since at least 1990, personnel records show. In her 2006 and 2010 deputy applications, Ross indicated she was a U.S. citizen and had never been detained by police, records show.

Ross, of Irving, told sheriff's investigators she lied because she wanted to fulfill her dream of becoming a deputy and making her family proud.

Ross was detained in 1998 for an attempted illegal entry after showing a false birth certificate that said she was a U.S. citizen, sheriff's reports said. Federal law bars anyone who makes a false claim of U.S. citizenship from ever being able to legally enter the United States.

Ross was born in Monterrey, Mexico, with the name Maria Elvia Medrano Perez, according to a Mexican birth certificate she provided when she applied to the Sheriff's Department.

When Ross applied for deputy this year, a sheriff's personnel sergeant noticed discrepancies in Ross' initial job application in 2001 as well as her deputy applications from 2004, 2006 and this year, sheriff's records show.

"I noticed that there were inconsistencies with her answers on the various applications regarding her citizenship," Sgt. Shawna Turner wrote in a statement to internal affairs.

Turner asked Ross for her "residency card" last month, but Ross could not provide one, according to the internal affairs report. Ross began to cry when Turner told her she could not become a deputy because she was not a U.S. citizen.

The Sheriff's Department made citizenship a requirement for jailers and deputies in 2003.

When she was hired in 2001, Ross had a temporary work permit. It expired in 2005, and Ross could not produce an extension or a new one.

It's unclear how Ross was able to obtain a work permit in 2001 when she was in the U.S. illegally after being deported less than three years earlier.

In a statement to internal affairs, Ross said she left the country in 1998 for her grandfather's funeral in Mexico. She said she was questioned by U.S. immigration officials on her return, fingerprinted, photographed and sent back to Mexico.

"I wanted to become a deputy and work hard for it," she said. "I didn't intentionally want to lie. I lied because I wanted to accomplish my dream. I had worked very hard for this department ... it sounds very harsh because I am not a criminal. I only wanted to make my family proud and the department."

Internal affairs concluded she was untruthful when she said she had never been arrested or detained.

"Her almost nine years' experience as an employee with a law enforcement agency as well as the fact that she has an associate's degree in criminal justice also proves that she knows and understands what a detainment and or arrest are," the internal affairs report said.

Ross received an associate degree in criminal justice from El Centro College in 2000, records show.

Dr. Mattye Mauldin-Taylor, the county's human resources director, said this week that the Sheriff's Department should have followed up every year to make sure Ross was legally eligible to work in the United States.

Mauldin-Taylor and a sheriff's spokeswoman said their departments would create new policies requiring annual or periodic checks of the legal status of employees who are not U.S. citizens.

Employers are responsible for making sure employees are legally eligible to work in the United States.

Mauldin-Taylor said very few non-U.S. citizens with temporary work permits work for Dallas County. She said that in 13 years with the county, she's never seen a county employee detained by federal officials for being in the country illegally.

Ross had been assigned to Sheriff Lupe Valdez's prestigious quality assurance team, which oversees improvements to sanitation and maintenance in the jails. She had no prior disciplinary actions and was given an "outstanding" rating in her most recent job evaluation, sheriff's records show.

"This is not my personality. This is the biggest lesson in my life," Ross said in her statement. "I feel extremely bad about it. Thank you all for your support."


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