Woman faces 3rd deportation since June (DC Examiner)

Woman faces 3rd deportation since June

By Freeman Klopott
Examiner Staff Writer 2/3/09

A Guatemalan woman caught by Virginia State Police as she fled a van fire in Fairfax County last week is now facing her third deportation since June, according to court documents.

Veronica Garcia, 24, was among several people who fled from a burning van Jan. 26 at the interchange of Interstate 66 and the Capital Beltway in Fairfax. She was stopped by Virginia State Police and turned over to the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, according to a sworn statement by an ICE agent filed in Alexandria’s U.S. District Court. Fairfax and state police both called ICE agent Brendan Shelley the day of the fire, telling him they had a report of several Hispanic individuals fleeing the burning vehicle on foot, Shelley wrote in the statement. When Shelley arrived, state police had located three people from the van.

Shelley said he questioned Garcia, and she told him she was from Guatemala and had entered the country illegally. Shelley took her into custody and brought her to ICE’s Fairfax office for processing. There is no mention in the statement of what happened to the other two people from the van.

Garcia’s fingerprints revealed that she had been deported from the United States on June 11, although the statement does not say from where. She then illegally re-entered the United States on July 8 near Hidalgo, Texas. Garcia was once again arrested around Aug. 8 and taken on a plane filled with deportees from Laredo, Texas, to Guatemala on Aug. 22.

Garcia told Shelley she returned to the United States in January, not long before the van caught fire and she was caught yet again.
Court documents show Garcia is likely to plead guilty to the illegal re-entry charge pending against her at a hearing today.

Garcia’s attorney, Geremy Kamens, on Monday told The Examiner that she was “facing a very serious felony charge due in part to her being deported previously, and if she came back into the county she would likely face far more severe criminal penalties.”

Unlike neighboring Prince William County, Fairfax police officers have not received the federal training necessary to detain suspected illegal immigrants on their own. A plan for Fairfax officers to receive that training was scuttled last year.