Feds hope deportee returns
8/17/2009 10:30:02 AM

By Tim Ruzek

Federal officials are hoping a former Austin man, who was deported in January for the fifth time since 1988 to Guatemala, will agree to be brought back for sentencing on illegally re-entering the United States.

When the federal court sets a sentencing date, the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency plans to parole Fausto Cesar Alvarado into the United States, wrote Assistant U.S. Attorney Carol Kayser in a document filed Aug. 7 in federal court in the Twin Cities.

"Since (Alvarado's) whereabouts in Guatemala are known," she wrote, "a date and time for (him) to present himself at a (U.S.) port of entry could easily be communicated to him."

Kayser was responding to U.S. District Judge James Rosenbaum's order from July to show why Alvarado's indictment for illegally returning to the United States shouldn't be dismissed.

Rosenbaum wrote that ICE deprived the court of jurisdiction over Alvarado, who pleaded guilty Dec. 29.

ICE agents initially arrested Alvarado for immigration violations on Sept. 11 at a Dexter restaurant and bar, where he worked. Alvarado, who was living in Austin, allegedly used fake documents to get a job.

Alvarado, who's in his late 30s, was granted a limited furlough Jan. 16 by Rosenbaum, initially to spend about a week caring for his three kids while his wife stayed with their other child, who was recovering in a Twin Cities hospital's burn unit.

The judge granted Alvarado another week-long furlough Jan. 22. ICE arrested Alvarado that day.

Kayser argued to keep the indictment, saying ICE carried out a congressional mandate that criminal aliens such as Alvarado, a convicted child predator, shouldn't be at large anywhere in the United States.

Prosecutors opposed Alvarado's release from custody, Kayser wrote, and raised the detainer issue with the court, saying if Alvarado was released from custody, ICE would seize and deport him.

According to Kayser, the federal judge said that would be between Alvarado and the federal Department of Homeland Security.

ICE upheld the law, Kayser argued, when it seized Alvarado for deportation based on his 1996 conviction for a felony involving the sexual assault of a child and subsequent deportation in 1997. Authorities have continued to check if Alvarado has returned to the United States since his removal, court documents show.

The Mower County Sheriff's Department also is investigating an accusation that Alvarado sexually assaulted a teenage girl he knew in June 2008 in Dexter, federal documents show. The girl reported the alleged assault a few months ago.

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