Guatemalan's mistake could lead to deportation (Nevada Appeal)

Guatemalan's mistake could lead to deportation
By Kyle Magin
Bonanza Staff Writer
April 2, 2008, 6:01 AM

Detention process shocks friend of Incline Man

A friend came to bail out Antonio Sandoval-Perez after he made the grave mistake of driving drunk in the early morning hours of March 18 in Incline Village.
Chuck Meyer, called by Sandoval-Perez’s wife to bail out her husband out, knew the drunken driving arrest was not good — what he didn’t know is how far-reaching it would affect the Sandoval-Perez family.“I was so pissed at him,” Meyer said.
He has been friends with Sandoval-Perez, a 31-year-old illegal immigrant from Guatemala, for about nine years, working together in a variety of handyman-type jobs, Meyer said.
“He knows better than that and I told him he was an idiot, he could have killed someone,” Meyer said. “He has a family to worry about.”
Sandoval-Perez’s family includes his wife, Carolina, also an illegal Guatemalan immigrant, 3-year-old son Dylan, an American citizen, and Sandoval’s cousin Rudy Diaz. Diaz, 30, was struck by a car along with his girlfriend by an alleged drunken driver in Incline Village in November. The accident left Diaz’s girlfriend, Maribel Oroxom, 29, dead. After the accident, Diaz is now severely mentally limited, having problems with basic memory and comprehension, Meyer said.
Meyer went to the detention facility in Reno to post Sandoval-Perez’s $1,900 bail around noon March 18. He said he also helped set up an April 22 hearing for Sandoval-Perez at the Incline Justice Court to face his DUI charge.
Meyer was told by a clerk to come back in three to four hours to collect his friend because he needed to be processed out of the Washoe County detention facility. Taking care of some chores in the interim, he came back to the detention facility in three hours and asked about Sandoval’s status.
Then a clerk at the facility told him Sandoval-Perez wouldn’t be released because the U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency placed a hold on him, Meyer said.
“I told them that I posted bail on the condition that he would be released,” Meyer said. “And if he’s not going to be released, I’m going to want my money back.”
Meyer was told he had bailed Sandoval-Perez out, only to have him released immediately into ICE custody at the detention facility.
“I couldn’t believe it. By posting bail I made him available to them. If he hadn’t, he could have just sat in Reno until his court date then we could have taken care of the immigration issue,” Meyer said.
Washoe County Sheriff’s Public Information Officer Brooke Keast said the detention facility is legally obligated to take the bail money whether or not a suspect has an immigration hold.
“We are basically acting as an agent for the court in collecting the bail, we can’t deny them that right,” Keast said.
She explained that the court clerk does not have to notify someone such as Meyer of the immigration hold and those posting bail should be aware of another person’s immigration and documentation status. This policy was put into place at the request of Immigrations and Customs Enforcement after its September raids on businesses in Reno employing illegal aliens, Keast said.
Steve Branch, the ICE field office director for Utah and Nevada, said the hold was public knowledge, but people have to contact ICE’s Reno office to get the information.
Meyer said a lieutenant at the detention facility apologized to him for accepting the bail money when Sandoval-Perez was not released.
“When that happens, yeah, we’re going to apologize,” Keast said. “No one wants to fool someone and make them think their friend wont be released because of an immigration hold.”
Instead, Sandoval-Perez remained at the detention facility, and Meyer asked the clerk when he could visit. He said the clerk told him it would be three to four days because Sandoval-Perez was subject to a medical screening.
Keast confirmed the medical screening is a standard procedure to make sure inmates are free of tuberculosis before they are released to the general population at the facility.
“So I thought, OK, I’ll come back Saturday and talk to Antonio about looking for a lawyer,” Meyer said.
When he called back on Saturday, March 22, to confirm a visitation time with Sandoval, however, Meyer was told his friend was in ICE custody in Florence, Ariz., 820 miles away, awaiting an April 1 hearing with an immigration judge.
“I was shocked, it’s like the Nazi Gestapo days, I wasn’t able to set up any lawyer for him because of the medical hold and couldn’t meet with him. He had no idea what was going on,” Meyer said.
He said he had no idea at first how to obtain an immigration lawyer for his friend so far away.
Branch said Sandoval-Perez was transported to Arizona because the facility has an immigration judge able to handle the deportation case in short order.
“Our concern is really for what’s best for the detainee, in getting him his due process and a judge to hear his case as quickly as possible,” Branch said.
Meyer’s concern turned to Sandoval-Perez’s April 22 court date with the Incline Village Justice Court. He was worried his friend would still be in ICE custody, or worse, deported.
Frankie Fash, a clerk with the court, confirmed Sandoval-Perez’s court date and said if he did not show up for it for any reason, including an ICE detention, he would be issued a bench warrant for failure to appear at the hearing.
“So that means if Antonio ever can clear this situation up with immigration, he’ll be in even bigger trouble up here for not going to his court date,” Meyer said. “Right now he’s really confused, he wants to get back to his family but he can’t, and he can’t attend the trial date he set up or have his family nearby.”
James Kelly, a Reno-based immigration lawyer and former Incline Village resident, said he’s seen this scenario play out before.
“ICE shows a disrespect for other law enforcement on a fairly regular basis,” Kelly said. “They are trying to get him off their hands as quickly as possible by getting him in front of an immigration judge and getting him deported. What’s happening to this guy locally has no bearing on their decision. It costs them money to have him in detention. He’ll have a bench warrant for his arrest here if he ever wants to come back, it’s sad.”
Meyer said his next step is trying to find an immigration attorney in Arizona to handle Sandoval-Perez’s case, which he said has been difficult given the distance.
“Antonio pretty much wants to pay his debt to Washoe County, pack his family up and leave for Guatemala,” Meyer said. “This has gotten ugly and he said he just wants to have it be over with.”
The next step for Sandoval-Perez began Tuesday, when his family found out he had his immigration hearing continued until April 8 to allow him time to find a lawyer.
Meyer said he expects Sandoval-Perez to ask for bond from the federal immigration judge to attend his court date in Incline.
Meyer said he’ll then ask for a change of venue to Reno to face his immigration hearing, which Meyer said will probably end in Sandoval-Perez’s deportation.“After that he’s going to ask for voluntary removal. Antonio doesn’t want to be loaded onto a plane and deported by himself and dropped off in Guatemala,” Meyer said. “He wants to get his family together and have them all fly down together for the move.”
That will mean taking wife Carolina and son Dylan Sandoval-Perez back to his hometown of San Lorenzo, Guatemala.
Carolina Sandoval-Perez says she wants to raise Dylan, an American citizen, here in Incline, where he can learn English and the schools are much better.She said Dylan asks for his father each day, asks when he is coming home and when he can see him again.
Meyer paints a stark picture of Sandoval-Perez’s life in San Lorenzo, a small mountain town about three hours from Guatemala’s capital.
“There is no running water, and Antonio only made it through sixth grade there, his brothers barely made it past third grade. It’s a pretty poor town where mostly everyone farms,” Meyer said. “It seems kind of cold to send him away, his cousin Rudy has awful short-term memory and probably can’t work again without therapy.”