How illegal immigrants are able to return to the United States time and time again after being deported — once or in multiple instances — is an issue that proves our borders are far from tough enough and that the enforcement of their security needs substantial improvement.
In Wichita, Kansas, a 38-year-old man named Tomas Martinez-Maldonado is being held in Geary County prison in Junction City, roughly 120 miles from Kansas City. Martinez-Maldonado stands accused of raping a girl just 13 years of age on a Greyhound bus traveling through the state in 2016.
Almost as disturbing as his crime, however, is the fact that Martinez-Maldonado had been deported from the United States previously — not just once, but a total of 10 times since 2010. In addition to those deportations, since 2003, Martinez-Maldonado has been voluntarily removed from the United States another nine times.
The fact that this has been allowed to occur is proof that something is wrong with a system that many people, such as Republican Senator Jerry Moran of Kansas, call “broken.” Senator Moran and his counterpart, Republican Senator Pat Roberts of Kansas, as well as Republican Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa, call the case of Martinez-Maldonado “extremely disturbing” and question how he was able to continue to enter the United States and remain in the country.
Senator Moran wrote to the Associated Press, “There must be serious legislative efforts to address U.S. immigration policy, and we must have the ability to identify, prosecute and deport illegal aliens who display violent tendencies before they have an opportunity to perpetrate these crimes in the United States.”
Currently, the department of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has a request for Geary County to turn Martinez-Maldonado over to them upon his release. Martinez-Maldonado has two misdemeanor convictions in cases where he entered the U.S. without legal permission in Arizona, for which he was sentenced to just 60 and 165 days, respectively.
The fact that the sentences are so light in these cases and the fact that they’re misdemeanors instead of felonies may have a lot to do with why Martinez-Maldonado came and went so easily.
In the last fiscal year, 52 percent of all prosecutions on a federal level were for illegal entry or re-entry or similar immigration-related charges, according to records kept by Syracuse University. David Trevino, a Topeka, Kansas immigration attorney who’s given legal advice to the family of Martinez-Maldonado — some of whom live in the United States — claims multiple illegal entries aren’t unusual.
“[President-elect Donald Trump] can build a wall 100 feet high and 50 feet deep, but it is not going to keep family members separated. So if someone is deported and they have family members here… they will find a way back — whether it is through the air, under a wall or through the coast of the United States.” Trevino declined to comment on Martinez-Maldonado’s outstanding rape case.
Prior to Martinez-Maldonado’s first deportation in 2010, he had eight voluntary removals from the U.S. Between 2011 and 2013, Martinez-Maldonado was deported five more times. In 2013, he was charged with entering the country without legal permission and deported in 2014 after serving a sentence for that misdemeanor.
A few months later, he came into the country again and again was deported. In 2015, he was deported twice more, including once after a second sentencing. ICE says that when a person has been deported several times or has a significant criminal history, it regularly presents such cases to the U.S. attorney’s office, which can decide whether to pursue a criminal case.
In Martinez-Maldonado’s case, the U.S. attorney in Arizona declined to comment on why prosecutors declined to press felony charges against him. Arizona is third in the nation in terms of immigration prosecutions after the Western District of Texas and the Southern District of Texas out of the country’s 94 federal judicial districts.
A status hearing in Martinez-Maldonado’s rape case has been set for January 10. Martinez-Maldonado’s defense attorney Lisa Hamer refused to comment on the outstanding case but stated, “criminal law and immigration definitely intersect, and nowadays, it should be the responsibility of every criminal defense attorney to know the possible ramifications in the immigration courts.”
~ Conservative Zone
