An undocumented immigrant couple who used fraudulent Social Security numbers to work at a Springfield restaurant will not serve additional prison time but may still face deportation.

In a Wednesday hearing, federal Judge Richard Mills granted Abel Morales, 41, a sentence of time served, which is about the 25 days Morales already spent in jail before he was released on bond. Last Tuesday, Morales' wife, Guadalupe Lugo-Segovia, 43, also received a sentence of time served, for the 10 days she spent in jail, from federal Judge Sue Myerscough. They will also have to adhere to nine months of supervised release, in which they report to a probation officer and have to submit to drug tests.

Born in Mexico, the couple has lived in Springfield for more than a decade. They both worked at Papa Frank’s Italian Restaurant, 4111 Wabash Ave., last year when an Immigrant and Customs Enforcement agent opened an investigation into the business’s employment practices. They, along with one other worker, were charged in September.

In separate hearings on the same day in November, they pleaded guilty to one count of fraudulent misuse of visas and permits. In pleading guilty, the prosecution dropped a second charge of identification fraud, which held a mandatory two-year sentence that would have had to be served consecutively to any other prison term.

At Wednesday's hearing, Morales sat in the courtroom in a blue button-down shirt, wearing a headset that enabled him to hear an interpreter translate the court proceedings. Lugo-Segovia and their 12-year-old son, who is an American citizen, sat outside the courtroom and peered in through a glass window every couple of minutes. Watching the sentencing in the courtroom would be too emotional, Valeria Cueto, their daughter's former English teacher who accompanied them, said.

When it was Morales' turn to speak to Mills, he spoke in Spanish. He recognized his error and asked for forgiveness, but also said he has invested his "heart and soul" into his work and wanted to return to it, an interpreter translated for the court.

"This country has given me everything," Morales said, an interpreter told Mills.

Morales' recommended sentencing range was based on several factors, including a lack of criminal history. When the submitted guidelines tried to count the times Morales returned to Mexico after being caught near the border in 2003 as "deportation," Assistant U.S. State's Attorney Greg Gilmore asked Mills not to, saying there was no case law that upheld removal near the border and deportation in front of an immigration judge as the same thing. Mills, who commended Gilmore on his position, said his reasoning was fair.

In asking for leniency, the resulting guideline for prison time wasn't changed, but the lighter bracket could help Morales with his immigration status, especially if he is deported and tries to re-enter lawfully, Gilmore argued. He, along with Mills, warned Morales that re-entering the United States illegally would result in a more stringent penalty that included prison time.

"I would hate to see that happen, as I think we all would," Gilmore said.

Morales' attorney, Jay Elmore, asked Mills to take into consideration Morales' children, whose education he was not trying to disrupt. The couple owns a mobile home in the 3500 block of Ridgely Avenue, where they live with their two children.

His 18-year-old daughter, a DACA recipient, is attending community college on a scholarship and graduated from Sacred Heart Griffin High School. His 12-year-old attends a Springfield middle school and was born at St. John's Hospital.

Morales is also working with an immigration attorney on a work permit to try to lawfully work in the United States, Elmore said.

"This nice man behind me was trying to get into the greatest country in the world," Elmore said.

Mills said that though Morales was trying to provide for his family, he had still committed a crime that resulted in harm to the person whose social security number he stole. However, he said he was impressed by the pursuit of education by Morales' children.

"You are a credit to our community and we want to keep you, but we have to follow the book," Mills said.

At the end of the hearing, Mills told Morales to "go and sin no more." The Immigration and Naturalization Service, which will weigh whether Morales and Lugo-Segovia should be deported, may not take into consideration the same things he did, Mills warned.

"I'm dead serious that all of this won't mean anything at all to the INS," Mills said. "They go by the numbers. Make sure you are square with INS ... and do everything by the numbers."

Though the charge the couple pleaded guilty to does not proscribe deportation as punishment, a felony conviction and sentence could affect the outcome of their immigration hearings. Both Morales and Lugo-Segovia declined to comment, as did Lugo-Segovia's attorney, Johanes Maliza.

Elmore called the sentence fair and said Morales was a "great guy." He said he was excited to see Morales get a work permit.

Cueto, who was present during both of the couple's sentencing hearings, said she prayed for a favorable outcome. She said it "broke her heart" to see Morales apologize for trying to make a living, for taking a job that most people don't want.

She called the couple "the American dream."

"They have broken their backs working, to save, to buy a house," Cueto said. "They are doing it. They are doing that thing that as a nation we want to believe is possible."



Cueto, who is a member of the Springfield Immigrant Advocacy Network, said she hoped people realized that the anti-immigrant sentiment recently espoused in the country has a "human cost." She said the couple's plight is another reason for comprehensive immigration reform.

"People wouldn’t try to enter illegally or without papers if there was a navigable (immigration) system," Cueto said. "We don’t have one. This is a result: good people who are trying their best who end up hurt."

Contact Crystal Thomas: 788-1528, crystal.thomas@sj-r.com, twitter.com/crystalclear224.