Frustrated that ex-convicts are appearing on their side of the border without warning, Mexican officials are demanding more notice when U.S. authorities deport criminals after they are released from prison.
Convicted killers, robbers and drug dealers who complete their U.S. sentences are often sent across the border with no advance notification, Mexican consular and law enforcement officials say.
Mexican authorities want the U.S. Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement to provide names and records 72 hours in advance of the deportation of all convicted criminals.
Mexican law enforcement officers say that with more notice, they could check local and national criminal databases and arrest any immigrants with outstanding warrants. Those deportees would be detained before they have a chance to commit new crimes, said Martin Dominguez Rocha, Tijuana's head of public safety.
Mexican authorities also could monitor those ex-convicts who aren't wanted, Dominguez said. "If they constitute a risk there, they constitute a risk here," he said.
Dominguez pointed to the case of Mexican nationals Juan Jose Chagoya Ayala and Antonio Acevedo, who are accused of killing a Tijuana police officer and injuring another in a shooting June 5. He said both men had U.S. criminal records and recently had been deported without the knowledge of Mexican law enforcement officials.
In another case, two criminal immigrants who had been deported to Mexico were arrested last year after trying to carry out a kidnapping in Tijuana, law enforcement officers said. They also said several deported Los Angeles and San Diego gang members have committed crimes in Tijuana, such as possessing or selling drugs.
U.S. officials acknowledge that the Mexican government is not consistently notified when criminal immigrants are deported, which they say could lead to problems on both sides of the border.
"We have an obligation to them, if we can, to give them advance notice so they know what they have in their hands," said Ron Smith, the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement's San Diego field director for detention and removal.
The agency is reviewing the Mexican request to provide more warning, said spokesman Chris Bentley. Notification currently varies from case to case, he said.
Smith said the San Diego office informs Mexican authorities in advance as often as possible, but he sometimes doesn't get a warning himself when inmates are flown in from around the country to be deported.
