A complex web: What happens when undocumented people commit crimes

Becky Metrick | Chambersburg Public Opinion

Editor's note: This story is part of a series looking at the roles of foreign-born citizens and their impacts on the community.

The pain of losing a loved one to a drunk driver is hard enough for any family. Learning the driver was previously charged with DUI, and not long ago, is excruciating.

And when that driver is an undocumented immigrant? For a Franklin County mother whose child this person killed, that fact incited anger and questions over why the tragedy was able to happen at all.

Agustin Macias-Marquez drove drunk and killed two people on New Year's Eve in 2012. Heather Coble, 25, died that night, and a second person, Madison Perry, died in the hospital later in January.

Macias-Marquez' path leading to that point included his first DUI arrest more than a year earlier, on Oct. 5, 2011, per court records.

A year after that, on Oct. 22, 2012, Macias-Marquez was a victim of a robbery-murder where a housemate of his was killed, according to testimony in the perpetrator's trial.

About two months later, on Dec. 31, he drove through a stop sign while having at least a .143 percent blood alcohol concentration, and hit a Saturn sedan carrying Coble and Perry, police said at the time. They were flown to York Shock Trauma Center with serious injuries, and later died.

The mother of one of the victims has been vocal on social media about her frustration that Macias-Marquez had not deported for his previous DUI. Public Opinion was unsuccessful in contacting the mother for this story, and therefore is not naming her.

Macias-Marquez is the only undocumented person to cause a death in Franklin County in the last five years, according to data compiled by Syracuse University.

He currently sits in state prison, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement has a detainer on him for deportation.

His case illustrates a feared scenario. But whether he was on ICE's radar before the fatal crash is a mystery, and his case illustrates the complexities of immigration enforcement working with the justice system.

Read more from this series: Hundreds are learning English in Franklin County

Is the stereotype true?

President Donald Trump began his presidential campaign with a speech from which perhaps the most highlighted line was about Mexican immigrants being criminals, specifically drug dealers and rapists. He followed that with negative words about people from South America, Latin America and the Middle East.

It is no secret that he captured the belief of some Americans - he did win the election, after all.

But is there any truth to that belief that many immigrants, particularly undocumented immigrants, are criminals?

At the county level, it is nearly impossible to determine how many undocumented immigrants commit crimes and what those crimes are.

For one, not all crimes are reported to police.

Also, authorities are not required to report their findings on immigration status to ICE. That includes local police officers, who may run criminal background checks when filing charges and learn a suspect is undocumented, and prosecutors with the Franklin County District Attorney's Office, who may take a person's undocumented status into consideration.

If that information from law enforcement is not reported to ICE, then detainers on those suspects will not be filed. Data on detainers are what best illustrate how many undocumented immigrants allegedly committed crimes.

A detainer is an order for an undocumented person to go in front of the immigration courts to determine whether they should be deported, or can stay in the country legally under one of many exceptions.

Syracuse University has a database that shows what crimes are committed (or not committed) for each detainer. But if for some reason a detainer is not filed after a criminal charge is filed, the database would not reflect that person and incident.

According to Warden Bill Bechtold at the Franklin County Jail, the number of detainers filed for jail inmates has gone down over the last five years.

In 2013, the jail had 51 ICE detainers filed. There were 34 filed in 2014, 15 in 2015, 23 in 2016, and seven this year as of early April.

The Syracuse database includes detainers filed dating back to 2009 and goes through 2016, showing a total of 387 detainers being filed in that time period in the county. The database collects detainer information from around the country, in nearly every state.

A majority of those detainers, 163, were filed when no crimes aside from illegal documentation were committed.

Of other offenses, the next most common was DUI, with 83 detainers.

After that, there were 13 detainers on simple assault cases, 11 for assault, and 10 for forgery. The remaining types of crimes had detainers in the single digits.

Adding up the variety of sexual offenses shows 17 detainers for undocumented people charged with sex crimes, and around 20 people were charged with drug-related offenses.

Of all detainers filed, ICE obtained custody on individuals connected to 301 of them.

Any stereotyped notion that undocumented people are a violent, troublesome group is not supported by the data, according to District Attorney Matt Fogal.

"There may be things that are happening that we just don't know about, because they don't want to call anybody out because they don't want to jeopardize themselves," Fogal said. "But, looking at the data from what's reported, it's certainly proportionate to the rest of the demographics in the county."

When discussing Macias-Marquez' case, Fogal said that for his first DUI offense, his undocumented status disqualified him for the county's Accelerated Rehabilitation Diversionary program - which is typically the sentence for most convicted of first-offense DUI. Macias-Marquez instead did five days in jail, which is atypical.

What happened to him after that, Fogal didn't know.

A wider target

Fogal has said that over the years things have changed, but at one point there was a difference between what was considered a "deportable offense," and offenses that may not mean automatic deportation. It was a topic that he had an ICE attorney come in to discuss with his attorneys in case deportation came into play during prosecution.

ICE officials would not confirm to Public Opinion what was considered a "deportable offense" at the time of Macias-Marquez' DUi arrest.

Since then, however, as has been widely reported, President Trump has ordered authorities to get more strict and expand on the categories of people targeted for deportation.

ICE explained the agency's current policy:

"ICE focuses its enforcement resources on individuals who pose a threat to national security, public safety and border security. However, as Secretary (John) Kelly has made clear, ICE will no longer exempt classes or categories of removable aliens from potential enforcement," ICE officials told the Public Opinion. "All of those in violation of immigration laws may be subject to immigration arrest, detention, and if found removable by final order, removal from the United States."

There is currently a detainer filed on Marcias-Marquez with the state prison, in Smithfield, where he is serving a seven-year minimum sentence for homicide by vehicle, ICE officials confirmed. The detainer was filed after his arrest in that case - not for his previous DUI.

ICE did not provide confirmation of any detainer filed at the time of the original DUI. But ICE officials did say they conduct their own investigations and do not rely on other law enforcement agencies.

"U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement deportation officers conduct enforcement actions every day around the country and here in Pennsylvania as part of the agency’s ongoing efforts to uphold public safety and border security," ICE officials said.

Deportations around the country have made news in recent months. Just in the past few weeks, 141 people were arrested in Pennsylvania on an ICE immigration sweep. ICE said the operation targeted criminals, fugitives, people who had illegally re-entered the country and other immigration violators in Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Delaware.

Chambersburg Police Chief Ron Camacho and Waynesboro Police Chief James Sourbier both said their interactions with ICE are rare.

"We may alert them if we are investigating a dangerous felon, or cases involving human trafficking. We do not send them routine arrest reports. We do not file reports with them," Camacho said.

"You know, our relationship with immigration is virtually non-existent at the local level," Sourbier said. "We have minimal interaction with them periodically, and sometimes get informational update on law, statutes, and regional criminal activity."

A decision on deportation

"Not everyone who is detained gets deported," one ICE official said.

People who are detained go to the Immigration Courts of the Department of Justice, where each detainee has a hearing to determine whether they should be removed from the country or if they fit into one of the many situations that would allow them to stay in the country.

Once someone reaches this point, it's already been decided whether the crimes committed in a case should be considered for deportation, according to immigration courts officials.