Lawmakers: ICE Policy Allows Drunk Drivers Who Kill and Injure Americans to Go Free
Statement
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) and Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) today pressed Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Jeh Johnson on his department's policy that allowed three unlawful, criminal immigrants charged with drunk driving go free.
On February 24, 2016, Esmid Valentine Pedraza was arrested in San Francisco, California, for the murder of Stacey Aguilar. Prior to allegedly committing the murder, Pedraza was reportedly arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and placed in removal proceedings in August 2013 after Pedraza's conviction for DUI in Alameda County, California. Although ICE could have continued to detain him, ICE released him back onto the streets after he posted bond.
On February 7, 2016, Jose Munoz Aguilar, who is reportedly in the U.S. illegally, was arrested by police in Louisville, Kentucky, for drunk driving and colliding with a car occupied by Chelsea Hogue and Meghan Lake, causing injuries to both women. Chelsea Hogue is now in a coma. Although Jose Aguilar was transferred to ICE custody, he was promptly released because he didn't meet the Obama Administration's enforcement priorities.
On January 31, 2016, Eswin Mejia, a Honduran national believed to be in the United States illegally, was drag racing in Omaha, Nebraska, with a blood alcohol level more than three times the legal limit. He struck 21-year-old Sarah Root's vehicle from behind and she was killed. Mejia was charged with felony motor vehicle homicide and was released after posting bail. Although state authorities reportedly contacted ICE several times and requested the agency take custody of him prior to his release from state custody, ICE refused. He is now a fugitive from justice.
In the Chairmen's letter to Secretary Johnson, they declare that the "decisions by ICE to release these dangerous criminal aliens, all of whom are apparently illegally present in the United States and are clearly threats to public safety, are a complete abandonment of ICE's law enforcement mission." They press Secretary Johnson for information about the aliens' criminal histories and encounters with law enforcement.
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