Illegals nabbed in prostitution ring (Virginia Gazette)

Illegals nabbed in prostitution ring

By Amanda Kerr | The Virginia Gazette
November 26, 2008

JAMES CITY - Five illegal immigrants were arrested Friday night in connection with a prostitution ring at a home on Richmond Road, just south of Lightfoot.

The raid took place just after 7 p.m., when the James City Police SWAT team executed a search warrant at 6115 Richmond Rd., in front of the Villages at Westminster subdivision.

Mike Spearman of the James City Police said among the items found at the home was a “large variety of condoms” and “pornographic movies being played in a waiting area.”

Spearman said the investigation of the home was led by the Tri-Rivers Drug Task Force with assistance by James City Police, State Police, Immigration & Customs Enforcement and the Drug Enforcement Administration.

“Records and witnesses will indicate that the house was a part of a prostitution ring which resulted in girls being brought to the house to work as prostitutes,” Spearman said in a press release. “Girls were likely brought from across state lines to work in this ring.”

Two of those arrested were alleged prostitutes and three were alleged pimps.

* Marta Julia Martinez-Aquino, 33, charged with prostitution.

* Ana Maria Rosales-Gonzales, 25, charged with prostitution. She also goes by the name Flora Marisol-Rosales.

* Marco Tulio Lara-Galvez, 55, charged with receiving money for procuring a person for prostitution and conspiracy to commit a felony.

* Felipe Vargas-Ortega, 42, charged with receiving money for procuring a person for prostitution, keeping a bawdy place, and conspiracy to commit a felony.

* Emma Tlacoxolal-Perez, 36, charged with receiving money for procuring a person for prostitution, keeping a bawdy place and conspiracy to commit a felony.

No clients were arrested. Any Johns would have been charged with frequenting a bawdy place.

Spearman said Vargas-Ortega and Tlacoxolal-Perez are believed to be involved with the operation of a local prostitution ring. Vargas-Ortega and Tlacoxolal-Perez are also believed to be linked to a prostitution operation in Newport News.

About two hours after the home on Richmond Road was searched, Newport News Police raided a home near Denbigh where 12 people were charged with various prostitution-related offenses.

“Both operations are believed to be run by the same person or persons,” Spearman said. It is unclear if Vargas-Ortega and Tlacoxolal-Perez were running both houses.

Spearman said all five arrested here were immigrants from El Salvador and were in the country illegally. Many of the people arrested in Newport News were from Mexico or Ecuador.

All of the suspects have been jailed without bond.

ICE raids take 16 Flagstaff residents (Jack Central)

ICE raids take 16 Flagstaff residents

November 26th, 2008 by Sarah Pickering

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrived in Flagstaff on Wednesday, Nov. 19 to arrest undocumented citizens with criminal records, sparking an impromptu protest by various immigrant rights and activist groups.

On Nov. 20, the Repeal Coalition, a group dedicated to the repeal of all anti-immigration legislation in Arizona, organized various efforts to warn the community that members of ICE would be conducting raids in target neighborhoods. ICE is a governmental agency responsible for identifying and investigating illegal activity with regards to the United States border.

The Repeal Coalition gathered a group of approxminately two dozen people at Killip Elementary School in Sunnyside to escort children to their homes. In the evening, the group, including members from CopWatch, ASWI, NAU Peace and Justice, MEChA and Save the Peaks protested numbers of arrests already made by ICE.

Approximately 70 people stood near the county jail on Butler Avenue chanting, “ICE is on thin ice” and “No more body snatching.”

Joel Olson, a member of the Repeal Coalition and assistant professor
in the NAU Department of Political Science, said ICE’s raids are a violation of civil rights.

“They’ve raided homes, they’ve arrested six people and they’ve got warrants for 40 people total,” Olson said. “We’re opposed to body snatching and all the laws that are preventing citizens and non-citizens alike from being able to live and love and work wherever they please.”

Maren Lester, a freshman undeclared major, disagreed with alleged tactics to raid elementary schools, but agreed with neighborhood raids.

“If (undocumented citizens) haven’t pursued legal ways to get into the country, then they have no right to be here,” Lester said.

According to ICE’s Web site, the agency protects the nation’s homeland security.

“(ICE) upholds public safety by targeting criminal networks and terrorist organizations that seek to exploit vulnerabilities in our immigration system, in our financial networks, along our border, at federal facilities and elsewhere in order to do harm to the United States,” the mission statement reads.

When contacted for a comment, ICE did not respond.

Olson said he felt the most important part of the protest was getting the word out about the problems with ICE and other anti-immigration legislation.

“Our overall goal is the repeal of all anti-immigration laws in the state of Arizona,” Olson said, referring to the Repeal Coalition’s mission. “Arizona is ground zero for immigration reform. If we change the laws in Arizona, we change them nationwide.”

“All day we’ve been doing patrols around the neighborhood, making sure ICE is informing the undocumented citizens of their rights,” said George Villas, a protester.

Erin Entringer, a freshman choral education major, said she agreed with ICE’s practices from an economic standpoint.

“I understand that people are coming here to make a better life for themselves,” Entringer said. “I think those people should go through the legal process to become citizens, rather than free-loading off of our tax money.”

ICE obtained 40 warrants for undocumented citizens, arresting 16 who were previously ordered to leave the country.

“ICE is taking people that they don’t have warrants for,” said Eva Amaral, a member of the Repeal Coalition. “That’s what’s happening in Maricopa County and we don’t want it here.”

Amaral said she wants the city of Flagstaff to join in the resistance against ICE, and said a community effort is crucial to maintaining civil rights.

“Lives are being destroyed,” Amaral said. “We’re not going to let a government agency tell us that we aren’t people.”

Inside ICE Efforts At Local Jails (KTVL-OR)

Inside ICE Efforts At Local Jails

November 17, 2008 - 5:11 PM
Carolyn Carver

More than 30 percent more illegal immigrants with criminal records are off Southern Oregon streets this year, according to new numbers from Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials.

Now News Ten got a rare look inside the criminal deportation process between local jails and the federal immigration agency.

Ice agents say the jump in deportations is because of the growing Criminal Alien Program, also known as CAP.

Agents say CAP bridges the gap between local and national government agency's to identify immigrants who commit crimes and get them off the streets.

Jose Villa grew up in Southern Oregon. He graduated from North Medford High School.

"All my families here, my parents my wife my kid," he says in ICE custody.

But Villa was born in Mexico and now his numerous arrests are catching up with him.

"My family's expecting me to go home tomorrow they don't know I'm here with immigration now," Villa says.

Villa moved from the Jackson County Jail with federal ICE agents to start the process of being deported back to Mexico.

Sheriff Mike Winters says this system works.

"We're not just trying to pick out people for no good reason we're specifically looking for criminal illegal aliens," Winters says.

A. Neil Clark, the Northwest ICE Field Director for Oregon, Alaska and Washington says the federal government is working with local jails to get illegal immigrants with criminal records out of communities.

"We're going in and getting criminals that have committed crimes in the streets of America and if they're subject to removal we're removing them before they can step foot back on the streets of the country," Clark says.

ICE officials in the Medford office puts the immigrants into the system with fingerprints and interviews, then it's up to a court to decide if they'll be sent back to their home countries.

"All my family's here," Villa says. "I have everyone you know starting form my grandpa, parents, everybody here. I would be lost," Villa says.

He is just one of about 10,000 illiegal immigrations deported from the Northwest this year, according to ICE officials. Thats up 37 percent since last year.

Villa says, "I'm just asking for one more chance, a last chance. I just want to stay here with my family," he says.

For now ICE agents say they'll keep working to keep criminals off the streets.

Villa says he'll fight to stay in a country he now calls his own.

Across the country, more than 345,000 people were deported last year.

That's up from about 288,000 the year before.

Wal-Mart truck used to smuggle immigrants (AP c/o Houston Chronicle)

Wal-Mart truck used to smuggle immigrants
The Associated Press
Nov. 18, 2008, 11:38AM

McALLEN, Texas — A Wal-Mart truck driver and two women were arrested, accused of attempting to smuggle illegal immigrants through a Border Patrol checkpoint in the rig's trailer.

Alejandro Hernandez, 50, unloaded a delivery at a Wal-Mart in McAllen then stopped at an Edinburg truckstop. There Leonor Gomez, 29, and her mother Santos Gomez Moreno, transferred the immigrants from their van to Hernandez's trailer, according documents filed in federal court Monday.

Wal-Mart assisted the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to identify Hernandez's route and truck after federal authorities were tipped to his alleged activities.

"At Wal-Mart we expect our associates to conduct themselves in a lawful and ethical manner," company spokesman Don Fogleman told The (McAllen) Monitor. "This situation is of deep concern."

Investigators believe Hernandez had used his truck to smuggle illegal immigrants through the checkpoint, which is about an hour north of the border, at least a half-dozen times. Gomez and her mother followed Hernandez north in their van with the plan being to transfer the immigrants back to the van once it cleared the checkpoint, court documents show.

Agents arrested the trio just south of the checkpoint Thursday. They stopped the truck before it reached the checkpoint because they were concerned about the well-being of the men in the trailer, according to the court documents.

All were taken into custody along with the four Mexican nationals in the trailer, which was empty except for some pallets.

Out of Prison, Mother With Disorder Waits (The Ledger)

Out of Prison, Mother With Disorder Waits

By Shoshana Walter
THE LEDGER

Published: Saturday, November 15, 2008 at 12:01 a.m.
Last Modified: Sunday, November 16, 2008 at 12:10 a.m.

LAKELAND | More than a month after her release from prison, Tracy McHugh remained in limbo last week, awaiting deportation back to Britain in the custody of United States immigration authorities.

The Lakeland mother who was diagnosed with Munchausen by proxy disorder and convicted of aggravated child abuse in August 2007, completed her sentence Oct. 7. Authorities said McHugh subjected her children to hundreds of unnecessary medical visits and sometimes harmful procedures, seeking attention for herself through the excessive care of her children.

Her two daughters and a son are now in the care of former family friends and McHugh, born in Scotland, will be deported, but immigration officials won't say when.

British law enforcement officials may decide to continue monitoring McHugh when she returns, but the crime doesn't transfer there, said Dean Churm of the British Consulate.

But if media interest in Scotland is any indication, her notoriety likely will.

'She's been in the Scottish papers a lot over here as they think she's going to be dumped back over here,' wrote British-based Sun reporter Rob McAuley in an e-mail to The Ledger. 'And it will cause an outrage if she is.'

For almost all of her 39 years, McHugh has lived in the United States as a permanent resident alien, according to her mother, Pauline McHugh, and therefore had many of the same rights as citizens. She was required to pay taxes and was allowed to vote in certain local and state elections.

But under federal law, Tracy McHugh became deportable the moment she was convicted of aggravated child abuse, a first-degree felony.

McHugh could hire a lawyer and fight deportation, Churm said, but the decision is ultimately in the hands of immigration officials in the United States.

Churm declined to go into the specifics of McHugh's case, citing consulate policy, but he did agree to discuss general issues affecting British citizens convicted of crimes in the United States.

'This is a common problem for deportees,' Churm said. 'Quite a lot of people come to the U.S. and get a green card, but if they don't apply for citizenship and commit that kind of a crime, they'll be deported. It comes quite as a surprise to them.'

Pauline McHugh said she'd like to see her daughter get help and treatment for the disorder, although the validity of Munchausen by proxy as a condition has been questioned by many in the medical community.

Although she grew up in Manchester, England, Pauline McHugh said she is not sure how many of her and Tracy's relatives are still alive.

Pauline McHugh left Tracy McHugh's biological father in Scotland before Tracy was born, after he pushed Pauline McHugh down a flight of stairs when she was six months' pregnant. Pauline McHugh's mother lives in a nursing home in London.

'She'll be all right. I know that,' Pauline said of Tracy. 'It's just that I'll never get to see her. I feel like I'm losing my oldest daughter and my grandchildren.'

McHugh and her daughter hardly talked during the ­nearly two years Tracy McHugh sat in prison.

Their relationship, strained for years since Tracy McHugh's adoptive father died, was overpowered by media attention, Pauline McHugh said. In recent months, the two have begun talking again.

'It's a mixed feeling when something like this comes about. It's my own flesh and blood. What kind of mother am I? Grandmother? You question yourself,' she said. 'She misses those kids desperately. She thought and still does think she was being a good mother.'