Posted on 06/03/2005 8:13:09 AM PDT by SwinneySwitch
Recio: Undocumented immigrants will not be set free in Brownsville
— Jorge Enrique Vasquez Carrasco didn’t expect jail time or to be deported when he got caught illegally entering the United States.
The 18-year-old Honduran man expected the same treatment as thousands of other undocumented immigrants who have been set free after receiving a notice to appear in court.
According to federal figures, almost 88 percent of immigrants who receive those notices never appear in court and stay illegally in the United States.
But U.S. Magistrate Judge Felix Recio made a statement Thursday to Vasquez and six other Central Americans who were caught this week crossing the Rio Grande near Brownsville.
“I want you to tell all your friends in Honduras that if they come through Brownsville, Texas, they will not be paroled into the system and they will be put in jail and deported,” Recio told Vasquez in open court as he handed him a jail sentence that could keep him here until space opens at an immigration facility and he could be deported.
Vasquez and six others in his group pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor illegal entry charge.
Recio declined an interview, but federal officials said the immigrants will be held in a Cameron County jail until bed space could be found for them at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center near Bayview.
Although the federal facility is reported to be near its 850-bed capacity, ICE spokeswoman Letty Zamarripa said her agency is bound to carry out the federal judge’s sentence and relies on contracts with county jails to do so.
“There is not a limit on how long a federal prisoner can stay in a county facility,” she said.
According to the latest figures, there are at least 325 federal prisoners in Cameron County jails, including undocumented immigrants waiting to be transferred or deported.
Zamarripa said criminals and detainees from “nations of interest” such as those that support terrorism are give priority when moved from county jails to federal facilities.
“We are removing detainees everyday,” Zamarripa said of immigrants being deported from the Bayview facility. “We have two flights a week with room for 120 on each flight in addition to two buses leaving each week.”
Although there are no plans to expand the Bayview facility, Zamarripa said a 1,020-bed contract facility is expected to open in June near Pearsall, which could receive undocumented Central American and Brazilian immigrants caught in the Rio Grande Valley.
Nathan Selzer with the Valley Movement for Human Rights said undocumented immigrants are being put in danger while committing a non-violent and victimless crime and then being put in the same jails as “real” criminals.
Selzer said the situation would be most easily addressed through reform of the United States’ immigration policy.
“But that’s in the hands of President Bush and Congress and they refuse to do so,” Selzer said.
schapa@brownsvilleherald.com
They are just jealous that the OTMs were not sent home like the Ms. IMO
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