Immigration and Customs Enforcement is praising the work of their field agents for apprehending n an illegal alien who ran over and killed a 7-year-old New Jersey boy. After being arrested by Atlanta County authorities, local police released the 30-year-old Jorge Rodriguez-Saldana because he was only charged with a third-degree offense. ICE then tracked down and found the man in Pennsylvania before he could escape even further into the country.
"Had it not been for the persistent, courageous and diligent efforts of ICE-ERO to track him down, this individual might have fled," John Tsoukaris, field office director for the ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations in Newark, said last Thursday in a statement. "We will continue to make public safety our highest priority despite dangerous state policies."
The office also noted that the Atlanta County authorities never contacted ICE after Saldana was initially arrested. Instead, the federal agency relied on fingerprint data that was provided to the FBI.
"As is typical in many arrests, biometric hits occur based on the fingerprint-based biometric data submitted during bookings by state and local law enforcement agencies to the Federal Bureau of Investigation for criminal background checks," the office said.
Rodriguez-Saldana was arrested in Horsham, Pennsylvania on July 13. The 30-year-old illegal alien is a Mexican national.
His crash on July 10 killed a young boy named Marco Yu, and caused serious injuries to his 71-year-old grandmother.
New Jersey 101.5 reports that "A spokeswoman for the Atlantic County Prosecutor's Office, which had announced the charges against Rodriguez-Saldana, declined to explain why authorities had not informed ICE or whether the court would have considered his immigration status in determining whether he should be released before trial."