By Alfonso Chardy
Miami Herald
MIAMI — Amid the escalating national clash over immigration, new cases have emerged in federal court in South Florida showing how five undocumented immigrants from Mexico and Guatemala, all with criminal records, had been previously deported and returned undetected across the southwest border.
One of the five defendants, a Mexican, was deported at least seven times previously, while the others have at least one previous deportation each on their record.
The new cases raise to more than 10 the number of defendants in federal court in the first two months of the year charged with illegal reentry after deportation, highlighting the porosity of the border and the broken immigration system whose agents constantly arrest previously expelled foreign nationals only to arrest them again when they return weeks, months or years later. One recent study delivered to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said two of every five deported immigrants attempt to return.
The cases come to light at a time when President Donald Trump has put immigration front and center on the national agenda of priorities, with his executive orders or policies ordering the construction of a wall along the Mexican border, the deportation of between two and three million immigrants with criminal records and ending federal funding for so-called sanctuary communities.
Of the five most recent cases, the one that stands out is that of Héctor Eduardo Ramírez Gutiérrez, the Mexican national deported seven times previously, according to a criminal complaint filed in court by a Border Patrol agent.
The Ramírez Gutiérrez case began Jan. 10 when a Boynton Beach police officer responded to an emergency call at a shop where the defendant had been observed stealing items.
“Upon making contact with the subject and requesting identification, the subject had in his possession a driver license from Mexico with his picture on it,” according to the criminal complaint. “At that point, the officer contacted the West Palm Beach Border Patrol for assistance in establishing the alienage of the subject.”
Ramírez Gutiérrez was arrested and charged with grand theft, and providing false information to a law enforcement officer, according to the criminal complaint.
Border Patrol agent Jeffrey Martínez responded to the police call and questioned the defendant who admitted being illegally in the country, and to last crossing the border without immigration papers in 2011, according to the complaint.
Later, when Martínez checked Ramirez Gutierrez’s immigration record, he made a startling discovery.
The undocumented immigrant had been deported at least seven times previously and had a criminal record as well, according to the criminal complaint.
It said Ramírez Gutiérrez had first been deported in February 1986 followed by subsequent expulsions in January 1999; May 2000; June 2001; July 2006; November 2007 and November 2011.
The Border Patrol did not respond to a request from el Nuevo Herald for comment, and the court file did not show any attorneys hired or assigned to the defendant.
Besides Ramírez Gutiérrez, at least three other Mexicans and one Guatemalan — all with criminal records — were also arrested in South Florida by different police departments and then handed over to immigration authorities for criminal prosecution in federal courts.
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