illegal aliens

A federal jury in June was unable to conclude beyond a reasonable doubt that Samuel Navarrette-Aguilar supplied the heroin that killed a 22-year-old Portland mother who overdosed in 2012.

But the federal judge who presided over the so-called “Len Bias” case said Tuesday that the evidence was strong enough to factor into the sentence for the 41-year-old, who was still found guilty of a lesser offense as well as two other drug crimes. U.S. District Judge Marco Hernandez sentenced Navarrette-Aguilar, a Mexican citizen living in Hubbard, to 20 years in prison on each charge. The terms are to run concurrently, he said....

But the judge’s finding sends a clear message to drug suppliers about being held responsible for overdose deaths...
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A co-defendant convicted in the case, Saul Guzman-Arias, died in November before sentencing.

  Read more about Heroin trafficker who prosecutors say supplied heroin that killed Portland woman gets 20-year sentence

Medford police recently intercepted two travel bags packed with nearly $300,000 worth of heroin and methamphetamine on a commercial bus traveling through Central Point, authorities said.

Ivan Rojas-Hernandez, 29, of Salem, was arrested Friday on charges he was carrying one of the bags, but police are not certain to whom the other bag belongs, said Lt. Kevin Walruff of Medford Area Drug and Gang Enforcement.

Rojas-Hernandez was contacted by police while the bus was stopped at the Pilot Travel Center in Central Point at about 10:30 a.m. Friday. He voluntarily allowed police to search his travel bag, which contained about nine pounds of methamphetamine, Walruff said.

Walruff said Medford police and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents were acting off a tip, which led them to Rojas-Hernandez.

Walruff declined to reveal the name of the commercial bus line on which Rojas-Hernandez was traveling, fearing news of the drug bust may negatively affect its business.

He said the bus was traveling north on Interstate 5 from Southern California to a metropolitan area in the Pacific Northwest.

"We do not believe that any of these drugs were destined for the Rogue Valley area," Walruff said.

Police estimate the value of the methamphetamine they found in Rojas-Hernandez's bag is worth about $180,000, Walruff said.

Police seized a second bag from the bus containing about a pound and a half of heroin, worth about $50,000, and about two pounds of methamphetamine, worth about $40,000, Walruff said.

Walruff said police asked the passengers on the bus to claim their luggage, and one piece was left unclaimed. A police dog detected drugs inside the bag, so police obtained a warrant and searched it, he said.

"We don't believe (Rojas-Hernandez) to be tied to the unclaimed bag," Walruff said.

Police are continuing to investigate how the second bag of drugs found its way onto the bus, Walruff said.

Rojas-Hernandez is lodged in the Jackson County Jail on charges of possession and delivery of methamphetamine and he cannot be bailed out, because he is suspected of being in the country illegally, jail records show.

  Read more about Police find $300,000 worth of drugs in bus luggage

The state of Illinois issued 14,000 temporary drivers licenses to undocumented foreigners in two months, which, if that rate of demand is maintained, could double the number of licenses expected to be handed out during the first year of the law that allowed it...

"The numbers are impressive. We've attended to 24,000 people and granted 14,000 licenses, most of them at the 23 offices operating in Chicago and its metropolitan area," he said...

...authorities are concerned with the high percentage of rejections due to lack of documentation, of people who have unresolved cases for traffic offenses or who have driven with false licenses...

When the law was approved in January 2013, it was calculated that there were some 250,000 people driving without licenses in Illinois, of whom 90 percent were of Mexican origin.

However, the Office of the Secretary of State prepared itself to attend to some 500,000 people who could request the document...

  Read more about Illinois issues 14,000 drivers licenses to undocumented foreigners in 2 mo.

Top administration officials have directed 21,000 border patrol officers to retreat whenever illegal immigrants throw rocks at them, and to avoid getting in front of foreign drug-smugglers’ vehicles as they head north with their drug shipments.

“Agents shall not discharge firearms in response to thrown or hurled projectiles… agents should obtain a tactical advantage in these situations, such as seeking cover or distancing themselves,” said the instructions, issued Mar. 7, under the signature of Michael Fisher, chief of U.S. Border Patrol.

Agents were also directed to keep their weapons holstered when drug smugglers drive by.

Agents can’t use guns against “a moving vehicle merely fleeing from agents,” say the instructions.

The new instructions do allow agents to use guns to defend themselves from vehicles that drive at them. “Agents shall not discharge their firearms at a moving vehicle unless the agent has a reasonable belief that… deadly force is being used against an agent,” the new instructions say.

However, the instructions also suggest that officers be penalized if they don’t step back. Agents “should not place themselves in the path of a motor vehicle or use their body to block a vehicles’s path,” according to new instructions.

The new curbs were praised by advocates for greater immigration, including Juanita Molina, director of the Border Action Network. New Jersey Democratic Sen. Robert Menendez, and Democratic Rep. Zoe Lofgren, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Menendez is one of the drafters of the June 2013 Senate immigration bill, which would boost the inflow of legal immigrants and guest workers up to 40 million over the next decade. During the same period, roughly 40 million Americans will turn 18.

  Read more about DHS tells American border guards to run away from illegal immigrants hurling rocks at them, fleeing in vehicles

Charly Michael Aguayo-Caro was once a mid-level manager at a thriving business...

One of Aguayo-Caro's customers sold Rael the dose that killed him...

Aguayo-Caro's also was charged with "distributing heroin resulting in death," commonly known as the "Len Bias law," named for a University of Maryland basketball player who died of a cocaine overdose in 1986....

Aguayo-Caro and other Mexican immigrants from Xalisco in the Pacific Coast state of Nayarit, perfected the system that operated in Oregon and several other states. The heroin business was detailed in a 2010 Los Angeles Times series....

Three prior investigations –by police in Beaverton, Woodburn and Portland -- resulted in arrests of underlings, but not Aguayo-Caro...

Aguayo-Caro's unit grossed about $1 million a year, Mygrant estimated.

"It's nice to convict one of the managers," Mygrant said....

Aguayo-Caro will be deported when he's released from prison.

  Read more about Milwaukie man's heroin death leads police up supply chain to nab distributor

A decision remains to be made in immigration court for Cinthya Garcia-Cisneros, the driver convicted of felony hit-and-run in the Oct. 20 crash that killed two young Forest Grove stepsisters.

Garcia-Cisneros, 19, attended a bond hearing Wednesday morning, March 5 at the Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma. The ruling will determine whether she must remain in custody while her immigration case is pending. She was sentenced in January to three years of probation and 250 hours of community service....

The judge is expected to release a decision in writing after reviewing the documents, Cooke said. The judge did not give a time frame...

Garcia-Cisneros, brought to the United States as a young child, had temporary permission to be in the country under the federal Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. The program is available to undocumented immigrants who entered the U.S. before turning 16...

Carter said in January the conviction renders Garcia-Cisneros ineligible for deferred action. Read more about Ruling pending after immigration hearing for Cinthya Garcia-Cisneros, convicted in Forest Grove fatal crash

A man who got rid of a machete that authorities say was used to brutally hack a 25-year-old Southwest Portland man to death pleaded guilty Friday to hindering prosecution and tampering with physical evidence....

Ahmad Nofal Alkalali, 28, was charged...

...Alkalali was at a party on March 31 and told an eyewitness to the crime that “I was the dude who took care of the weapon.” The witness, who had seen his friend Weber brutally hacked with the machete 22 days earlier, reported Alkalali’s admission to police...

...The native of Saudi Arabia has lived in the United States since 2004...

...he could face deportation if he’s not an American citizen.

Three of the four men charged in the killing face aggravated murder charges: Clifton Albert Carey, 21, of Vancouver; Hussein Ali Haidar, 22, of Lake Oswego; and Mahmoud Mohsen Moustafa, 21, of Southwest Portland. Omar Mohamed Ibrahim, 19, of Southwest Portland is charged with murder. Their trial is scheduled for October...

ICE HOLDS:  Moustafa and Ibrahim

  Read more about College student who got rid of machete -- reportedly used in brutal murder -- pleads guilty

Proponents of a referendum that seeks to overturn an Oregon law giving illegal aliens access to driver cards defeated an attempt to undermine the ballot measure. A bill that would have re-written the referendum title in a manner favorable to keeping the law failed to clear the State Senate before adjournment.

Oregon Referendum 301 – a ballot measure entitled Protect Oregon Driver Licenses – will give Oregon voters an opportunity in November to overturn a law passed last year that gives illegal aliens access to driving privilege cards. The Oregon Supreme Court is currently handling a dispute over the ballot’s title but proponents of the law sought to preempt those deliberations by legislatively re-writing the title in a manner favorable to keeping the law.

The title as qualified for the ballot states: “Provides Oregon resident driver card without requiring proof of legal presence in the United States.” The Oregon House passed a bill (HB 4054) to re-write the ballot as follows: “Establishes limited purpose, duration driver card for individuals who prove Oregon residency, meet driving requirements.”

Proponents of HB 4054 claimed the ballot title “doesn’t reflect their goal of improving public safety” – a rationale often used by those seeking driving privileges for illegal aliens. But the Oregon DMV recently announced the law’s passage has not thus far reduced unlicensed driving.

Oregonians for Immigration Reform (OFIR), the group that qualified the referendum for the ballot, argued the Oregon Supreme Court should decide the matter of the ballot title, not the state legislature. And they had high-profile help from a major newspaper – The Oregonian. The paper’s editorial board on Feb. 24 called the legislative re-write, “a breathtakingly cynical move that would taint the very law they’re trying to preserve.” And in a second editorial on Feb. 25, the board said proponents are trying to “hijack the normal process for writing ballot titles. “

The phone calls, emails and personal lobbying efforts by OFIR leaders paid off. HB 4054 was set for a vote in the Senate Rules Committee, which schedules floor action, but the committee never took up the bill before the legislature’s adjournment.

OFIR President Cynthia Kendoll said in a statement, “Oregonians and every major newspaper across the state raised their voices in loud protest of the Oregon Legislature's unprecedented attempt to hi-jack the ballot language for the citizens veto referendum #301. Their intentions were crystal clear - to re-write the ballot title and summary to deceive the public - to confuse the voter - and ultimately win the election by burying the fact that SB 833 grants state issued ID, in the form of a special driver license, to applicants who can't prove legal presence in the US. Oregonians prevailed and the bill died Friday when the Senate refused to bring it to the floor for a vote.” Read more about Proponents of Referendum Opposing Driver Cards for Illegal Aliens Defeat Measure Undermining it

TACOMA, Wash. — An immigrant activist says hundreds of detainees in the federal Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma, Wash., have begun a hunger strike to protest deportations as well as center conditions.

Activist Maru Mora says an immigrant rights lawyer was inside the center on Friday, spoke with some of the strike organizers and was handed a list of their demands.

Mora says the inmates are seeking better food and treatment as well as better pay for detention center jobs. She says the strike started Friday.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesman Andrew Munoz said he wasn't able to comment Friday night.

ICE detention standards state that a detainee who has not eaten for 72 hours is considered to be on a hunger strike.

  Read more about Activist says hundreds of federal Northwest Detention Center detainees on hunger strike