Fugitive Wanted For Murder In Mexico On Flight As Agency Continues To Enforce Immigration Laws

CHICAGO—A man who illegally swam across the Rio Grande River to escape murder charges and eventually made his way to Racine, Wis., was one of 118 foreign nationals – mostly Mexican – who were deported on a government flight for prisoners Friday by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

José Trinidad Reynoso-Enciso, aka “El Coyote,” is a 48-year-old Mexican national and resident of Racine, Wis., who is wanted by Mexican authorities for murdering a man in the Mexican state of Jalisco in 2002. ICE agents arrested Reynoso-Enciso March 4 as he appeared at the Kenosha County Circuit Court for a traffic violation.

Of the 118 deported, 111 were Mexican nationals. The flight also included four Filipinos, three Guatemalans, one Honduran and one El Salvadoran, all of whom were transferred to other flights at the Mexican border.

These deportations, which occur weekly, reflect ICE's commitment to restoring integrity to the nation's immigration system as the agency comes off a record year of deportations. ICE formally removed more than 160,000 aliens nationally in fiscal year 2004. More than half of those were criminal aliens. The ICE Chicago office removed more than 6,100 aliens last year, a 28 percent increase over the previous year.

Also on board this week’s prisoner flight was Juan Gomez-Meza, a 31-year-old Chicago gang member who got into a fight outside a bar on N. Milwaukee Ave. and shot his .22-caliber handgun on a public street. Gomez-Meza was convicted of armed violence in 1998 and sentenced to 15 years in prison. He was turned over to ICE custody upon his release from prison.

“Criminal aliens have no legal right to be in the United States, and many of them continue committing violent crimes against the American public,” said Field Office Director Deborah Achim, who leads ICE’s detention and removal efforts in Chicago. “Immigration violations degrade the very system that millions of legal immigrants choose to follow each year. We know that criminal and terrorist organizations have exploited vulnerabilities in that system. We help make our communities and our country more secure with every criminal alien we deport.”

Achim oversees the program for a six-state area including: Illinois, Wisconsin, Indiana, Kentucky, Kansas and Missouri.

Aliens are deported aboard both commercial and government aircraft. The government’s aircraft is run by the U.S. Marshal Service, and is called the Justice Prisoner and Alien Transportation System (JPATS). JPATS is one of the largest transporters of prisoners in the world and handles hundreds of requests every day to move prisoners and criminal aliens nationally and internationally. There is an automatic 10-year bar against deported aliens from legally re-entering the U.S.

"Anyone caught by any law enforcement office after having been previously deported will be presented by ICE officers to the U.S. Attorney for prosecution," said Achim. "Reentry after deportation is a felony that carries a possible 20-year prison sentence