The Star-Ledger
Alejandro Rivera Gamboa, an illegal immigrant from Mexico, was arrested four times on drunken driving charges in Oregon. But until police charged him last week with choking the life from a 15-year-old girl, immigration authorities had never heard his name.
Juan Lizcano had at least two run-ins with the law in Texas. Both went unnoticed by immigration officials until Lizcano, who entered the country illegally in 2001, was charged with killing Dallas Police Officer Brian Jackson in 2005.
In New Brunswick, Ricardo Cepates, an illegal immigrant from Honduras, already had an outstanding deportation order when he was arrested for holding a knife to a woman's throat in 1998. But he, too, fell through the cracks and was released. In 2004, he was convicted as a serial rapist who had terrorized a large swath of the city for two years.
For many Americans, it is an article of faith that an illegal immigrant sitting in jail on criminal charges will soon be deported. Indeed, federal law dictates that people in the United States unlawfully be sent back to their homelands if they're convicted of crimes.
But in the nation's overwhelmed and disjointed immigration system, that is hardly the case.
Posted by tyne at August 22, 2007