Huerta turned over to ICE (McKinney Courier-Gazette)

Huerta turned over to ICE
Mother pled guilty to leaving kids in car on highway,
turned over to federal immigration authorities

(Created: Monday, March 24, 2008 9:14 PM CDT)

BY DANNY GALLAGHER, McKinney Courier-Gazette
A woman who pled guilty to leaving her two children in a car that ran out of gas on a highway has been turned over to federal immigration authorities.
The Collin County Detention Center turned Margarita Huerta, 32, of Sherman, over to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement after she completed her jail sentence, according to jail records.
Lt. John Norton of the Collin County Sheriff’s Office said the jail turned Huerta over to ICE officials on Friday after the conclusion of her sentence.
Huerta pled guilty last month in the 416th District Court to two state jail felony counts of abandoning/endangering a child and received a 100-day jail sentence. She only had to serve 24 additional days in the county jail since the court subtracted the 76 days she spent in the jail since her arrest to her sentence, according to Collin County court records.
Nina Pruneda, an ICE spokeswoman, said federal officials can pursue deportation for citizens who are in the country illegally once they are convicted of a crime. Agents from ICE’s Criminal Alien Program, also known as “CAP,” conduct a “thorough” review of a convicted person in the jail to determine their immigration status. Once the person has completed their court appointed sentence, ICE agents can lodge an immigration hold to be executed upon their release.
Pruneda said the person has to be convicted of a crime in order to receive an immigration hold. Upon their release, their immigration status is referred to the Executive Office for Immigration Review, a division of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, where their case will go before an immigration judge who will determine the person’s deportation status.
Pruneda also said if the person deported has children with legal resident status, it is the person’s responsibility to find them guardians before they are deported.
Deputies arrested Huerta on Dec. 14, 2007 after she left her 5-year-old daughter and 10-month-old son in a vehicle on the southbound side of U.S. 75 north of Telephone Road, Lt. John Norton of the Collin County Sheriff’s Office said.
Huerta’s vehicle ran out of gas and she left the vehicle to get help. Soon after she left, her daughter got out of the vehicle and attempted to cross the street into oncoming traffic, Norton said.
Kyle Mitchell, an auctioneer from Terrell, told the McKinney Courier-Gazette back in December that he spotted the little girl running across the highway as he was driving north on U.S. 75 in front of his tractor-trailer. He said she darted out right in front of his vehicle.
“There was a Yukon or a Tahoe sitting on the inside shoulder of the highway with no hazards lights on, sitting right on the yellow line real close to the inside lane,” Mitchell said. “I had gotten over to the right hand lane and by the time I was getting to the Tahoe, all of a sudden a little girl appears, ran in front of the Tahoe and right across the highway. I shut the truck down and hit the horn real loud because I lost sight of her.”
Mitchell said he got out of his truck and ran back to check on the little girl. She was not injured. The girl said she left the vehicle because she was scared, Mitchell said.
Huerta flagged down a motorist, Melissa Lynn of Watauga, just after they exited U.S. 75. Norton said the two began talking and “as a result of their conversation,” Lynn returned Huerta to her vehicle, where Melissa police officers and Collin County sheriff’s deputies were already at the scene of the abandoned vehicle.
Collin County sheriff’s deputies took Huerta into custody and filed charges against her since the incident took place on a stretch of road outside Melissa city limits.
Contact Danny Gallagher at dgallagher@acnpapers.com.