Kathy A. Bolten

kbolten@dmreg.com

Editor's note: This story was originally published April 16, 2016.

COUNCIL BLUFFS, Ia. — In the space of a few seconds, Scott Root's crushing grief gave way to blinding fury as he got off the phone with Omaha police.

It was painful enough that Root was making final funeral arrangements for his 21-year-old daughter, Sarah, who was involved in a fatal car crash just 16 hours after she had graduated summa cum laude from Bellevue University, south of Omaha.

Now he had to tell Sarah’s mother and brother that the man accused of driving drunk and causing the accident — who was in the U.S. illegally and was now charged with motor vehicle homicide — was already out of jail after posting bond.

“We hadn’t even had our service yet,” Root, 50, of Council Bluffs said in an interview with the Des Moines Register. “You lose a kid, and then you find out the person who killed her is let loose. … Words really can’t describe how you feel.”

MORE: Sarah Root's mother meets with Trump on immigrant-crime measure

Within three days of making bail, 19-year-old Eswin G. Mejia fled — and no one has been able to find him since.

Mejia's case has triggered an international manhunt and ignited a flurry of finger-pointing over who's to blame for letting him out of jail. It has also prompted larger questions about how the U.S. handles people in the country illegally who are accused of crimes.

“Anything that could go wrong with this case has,” said Sarah's mother, Michelle Root, of Modale, Iowa, who will add to the debate when she testifies before a congressional committee Tuesday. “Losing our child wasn’t bad enough?”

For his part, Scott Root remains baffled about why Mejia, who police and court records show was driving drunk and street racing when he slammed into Sarah Root’s vehicle, was allowed out of jail in the first place. Mejia’s bond was $50,000, but he needed to post only 10 percent to gain his release.

U.S. senators, including Iowa's Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst, along with immigration policy reform advocates, have seized on the case.

They have publicly berated the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, or ICE, for refusing local authorities' request to issue a detainer that would have kept Mejia in jail for at least an additional 48 hours before he could make bond.

And Thursday night at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, Donald Trump invoked the Sarah Root case during his acceptance speech to underscore the dangers of illegal immigration.

“I’ve met Sarah’s beautiful family,” Trump said from the convention stage. “But to this administration, their amazing daughter was just one more American life that wasn’t worth protecting. No more. One more child to sacrifice on the altar of open borders.”

ICE officials contend that Mejia's charge didn't make him an “enforcement priority” and that local officials should have requested a higher bond if they wanted to make sure Mejia remained in jail. The judge who set Mejia’s bond is also under attack.

Ira Mehlman, a spokesman for the nonpartisan Federation for American Immigration Reform, said there’s no shortage of blame to spread around.

“None of (the agencies involved in the case) did what was necessary to protect safety here,” he said. “We need people to be held accountable, and we need accountability at every level.”

A stolen future

Sarah Root spent much of Jan. 30 celebrating her graduation from Bellevue. The commencement ceremony was at 9:30 a.m.

Root, who had a 4.0 grade-point average, did many of the things that day that excited college graduates do. She walked across the stage. She posed for a formal photo, smiling broadly in her black gown and cap with gold tassel.

She went out for a celebratory lunch with her family at Olive Garden. In the evening, she hung out with friends in Omaha.

Early on Jan. 31, she headed to her home in Council Bluffs.

She was driving a 2002 white Oldsmobile Bravada, and she stopped at a red light at a southern Omaha intersection near the top of a hill.

Mejia was driving a dark Chevrolet pickup truck up the hill at a “high rate of speed,” police say. In addition, court records show Mejia’s blood alcohol content was 0.241, more than three times the legal limit.

About 2:15 a.m., Mejia’s truck slammed into the back of Root’s SUV, pushing it about 800 feet past the intersection and shoving much of the rear into the back seat, Sarah’s father said. The impact snapped Sarah's spine and fractured her skull in two places, her mother said.

At the University of Nebraska Medical Center, doctors told Sarah's family she had no brain activity.

A two-minute hearing

Sarah Root was an organ donor. While medical staff contacted organ recipients and arranged surgeries, a life-support system kept Sarah's body functioning. Her family stayed with her round the clock until her organs were harvested.

“We didn’t want to feel like we were abandoning her,” said Michelle Root, 47. “We wanted to see the process through — for her and for us.”

Mejia was also taken to the Nebraska medical center, then later that day was booked at the Douglas County Jail. A DUI report indicated that he was an “Alien” and a booking sheet noted “he’s not a citizen,” according to information provided to the Register by Omaha police.

Sarah Root's heart stopped beating early Feb. 4, her parents said.

That afternoon, Mejia appeared before Douglas County Judge Jeffrey Marcuzzo in a bond hearing that lasted 2 minutes, 25 seconds, court records show. Marcuzzo told Mejia he faced a felony charge of motor vehicular homicide-driving under the influence.

According to an audio recording of the hearing, an assistant county attorney explained in less than 45 seconds how the accident occurred, that Mejia “was racing with another car” and had a blood alcohol content of 0.241 percent, and that Root died of her injuries. Marcuzzo was told that Mejia scored a 2 on a flight-risk assessment, a rating considered low.

Mejia’s attorney told Marcuzzo that Mejia didn’t have any felonies and was eligible for a sobriety program.

“I would ask for a reasonable bond, judge,” he said.

After pausing 18 seconds, Marcuzzo said: “I’m going to set your bond at $50,000, 10 percent if you do post that bond.”

At that point, Mejia had been in jail four days, and at least two documents indicated he was in the U.S. illegally. But no mention was made during the bond hearing about Mejia’s immigration status or that he had failed to appear at two previous court hearings.

Donald W. Kleine, county attorney for Douglas County, told the Register that prosecutors weren't aware that Mejia was in the country illegally.

“We knew he was born in Honduras — that’s the only thing we had,” Kleine said. “The judge knew the nature of the charges, but he didn’t ask us any more information. He just set the bond.”

But according to a document in Mejia’s court file, Mejia was advised of the “effect of conviction on non-citizens.” The document, printed at 1:15 p.m. Feb. 4, was signed by Marcuzzo.

Both attorneys in the case received copies.

It's unclear whether Marcuzzo signed the document before or after the bond hearing or when the attorneys received the copies.

Run-ins with authorities

By the time Eswin (also called Edwin in some ICE documents) G. Mejia had appeared in Douglas County court, he had already had several encounters with U.S. law enforcement.

His first was in May 2013, according to Department of Homeland Security, when Mejia entered the U.S. illegally and was stopped in Arizona by Border Patrol.

The U.S., at the time, was starting to experience a surge of unaccompanied minors entering the country illegally to join family already here. The sudden influx was prompted by violence in Central America and a misunderstanding of U.S. immigration policies, an ICE official told the Senate Committee on the Judiciary in February.

Mejia, who court records show was born in Honduras, was 16 when he arrived in the U.S. He was placed with a brother who lived in Tennessee while he waited for an immigration hearing. In early 2014, the family moved to Omaha.

Mejia and Omaha police crossed paths at least twice before Jan. 31.

In July 2014, Mejia was cited for driving the wrong way on a one-way street and for not having a valid driver’s license. In February 2015, he was cited for driving under suspension and failing to have a child passenger restrained.

He failed to appear in court for either case.

'Pass the buck'

On Feb. 5, one day after Sarah Root was declared dead, Mejia remained in jail most of the day.

Omaha police reached out that day to ICE officials at least four times in attempts to obtain an immigration hold — also called a detainer — on Mejia before he could make bond, according to the timeline provided to the Register. When an officer did reach an immigration official, the detainer was declined, police said.

A detainer would have allowed local authorities to hold Mejia until Feb. 8 or Feb. 9, potentially giving them time to persuade ICE officials that Mejia was a flight risk.

An ICE spokesman, in an April 11 written response to questions from the Register, wrote that the agency “has no record of the police department contacting the local ICE sub-office in Omaha or the Field Office in St. Paul.”

Even with the detainer, Mejia would have been eligible for a bond hearing before an immigration judge, “because he had no criminal conviction" and wasn't subject to mandatory detention under federal immigration laws, ICE director Sarah Saldaña wrote in response to questions from Nebraska Sen. Benjamin Sasse, a Republican.

Mejia’s bond was posted at 4:52 p.m. Feb. 5; he was released four hours later.

LISTEN:Bond hearing for Eswin G. Mejia on vehicular homicide charge

On Feb. 9, one day after Mejia failed to show up for a mandatory drug screening, a warrant was issued for his arrest.

The finger-pointing began days later.

“Everybody’s playing pass the buck,” Scott Root said. “This day and age, anybody who has been in any type of trouble — you should know their life story. If he’s been in jail four days, you should know a little bit about him; otherwise, you shouldn’t be doing legal type of stuff.”

The role of ICE

On Feb. 29, Sasse, the Nebraska senator, sent a letter to ICE’s director asking why the agency declined to detain Mejia, whether it thought he was a flight risk and what was being done to find him.

In mid-March, before the U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, Saldaña offered Sasse and Ernst different reasons about why ICE declined to issue a detainer on Mejia, among them that Mejia wasn’t considered an enforcement priority.

An ICE spokesman, in response to Register questions, said officials declined to issue a detainer because Mejia had never been convicted of a criminal charge. The spokesman wrote that “local and state law enforcement agencies do not make determinations regarding federal enforcement of U.S. immigration matters.”

Grassley, who has criticized ICE, described the agency’s response as “typical."

"They are going to blame local officials because they don’t want to take the blame," he told the Register. "Immigration is a federal responsibility.”

Mehlman of FAIR said the priorities of federal agencies frequently don’t mesh with those of local law enforcement.

“Unless somebody falls into that very, very narrowly defined set of priorities, (the federal agencies) just aren’t interested in taking people off the hands of local police departments that have arrested people for sometimes serious crimes,” he said. “This was an example of it.”

Mehlman also said members of Congress should be held accountable.

“Congress also has the power of the purse," he said. "And they can make it painful for these federal agencies not to carry out the laws. Congress has chose not to do that.”

Holding someone accountable

Sarah Root’s family has focused their attention on Judge Marcuzzo, asking the public to fill out complaint forms in an attempt to remove him from office.

Scott Root said he plans to submit thousands of completed forms to the state’s Judicial Qualifications Commission this spring. Root said he hopes the large volume of complaints will persuade officials to discipline Marcuzzo.

If that doesn’t happen, Root said he will campaign against Marcuzzo in his fall retention election. The judge, who did not respond to an interview request, served a 120-day suspension in 2009 after a private complaint was lodged against him.

"That’s all we’re trying to do — is hold this gentleman accountable," Root said. “If we do nothing, nothing will happen."

Kleine, the Douglas County county attorney, said he’s trying to arrange a meeting between local and federal officials to talk about what happened and improve communication.

“I think it’s important that the judge and our office know somebody’s immigration status, because it may affect their being a flight risk,” Kleine said. “That’s important information for the court, let alone the fact that once somebody gets arrested, ICE should be over here putting a detainer on them, especially when we’re talking about a felony.”

Kleine said attorneys in his office are now more frequently asking about an accused person’s immigration status.

“This has been a terrible example of how things haven’t worked, so let’s fix that,” he said.

Likelihood of deportation

Since March 30, Mejia has been on ICE’s “most wanted list.”

In addition, U.S. immigration officials have contacted law enforcement in Honduras about Mejia; Kleine said his office has been in contact with Interpol, the world’s largest police organization, which he said issued a red notice — the highest alert level — for Mejia.

Omaha police’s fugitive unit also is searching for Mejia.

If Mejia is found, he’ll be brought to Omaha to face charges, Kleine said. If convicted, he could face up to 20 years in prison, of which he’d likely serve eight to 10 years because of the state’s policy that allows inmates to slice time off their sentence for good behavior.

But even if Mejia is apprehended and convicted, motor vehicle homicide "would not constitute a crime of violence under the immigration laws" that would warrant automatic deportation, Saldaña, ICE’s director, wrote to Sasse in March.

While the hunt for Mejia continues, Sarah Root’s family mourns. A week ago, Bellevue University gave Sarah's diploma to the family.

Mejia “is the one to blame,” Michelle Root said. “He goes out and gets drunk. Street races … and hits our baby girl, who is at a stoplight.

“We do not want a family to go through this.”

What is a detainer?

The following is the American Immigration Council’s explanation of an immigration detainer:

A detainer is a tool used by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other federal agencies to identify potentially deportable individuals held in jails or prisons.

A detainer allows local law enforcement to keep a person in custody for up to 48 hours after their jurisdiction ends. That means if an accused offender makes bail, for instance, the local jurisdiction can continue to hold them.

After a detainer is issued, immigration officials decide whether to take custody of the person, who may then appear before a federal immigration judge.

Congressional hearing

Michelle Root will appear before a congressional committee at 9 a.m. CDT Tuesday that is holding a hearing titled “The Real Victims of a Reckless and Lawless Immigration Policy: Families and Survivors Speak Out on the Real Cost of This Administration’s Policies.”

The hearing will be webcast live at judiciary.house.gov