Illegal reentry into the U.S. increasingly leads to prison

"The people we go after are demonstrated threats," he said. "The No. 1 reason to do this is to protect the community."

As evidence, he pointed to the cases of two gang members charged after a jail sweep in December dubbed "Operation Winter Warning."

One of them -- Julio Cesar Mata-Sosa, a member of the Radford Street gang in North Hollywood -- had been deported seven times from 1998 to 2006, authorities said. His criminal resume included convictions for burglary, robbery, vehicle theft, cocaine possession and sales, and presenting false identification to a police officer.

The other, Ascension Hernandez-Perez, a Valerio Street gang member, was deported seven times from 1999 to 2004 and had previously been convicted of burglary, assault, battery, cruelty to a child, spousal battery and making terrorist threats, authorities said. Both men have pleaded guilty to illegally reentering the country after having been deported and are awaiting sentencing.

Defense attorney Yolanda Barrera, who handles several of these cases each year, says not every illegal reentry case features a hard-core criminal with multiple deportations.

"They could be a priest, they could be a nun; it doesn't matter," she said. "If they are here illegally, they have previously been deported and they have an aggravated felony, they are going to be prosecuted."

She recently defended a woman named Leticia Esparza, a former gang member who was sentenced to five years in prison on a 1997 drug sales conviction before being deported. Esparza was deported in 2000 and returned to the U.S. the same day because her two U.S.-born daughters were still here.

After returning, Esparza, now 37, left the gang, got her tattoos removed and started working selling cosmetics and had four more children.

Esparza was rearrested last June after police said she tried to cash a stolen check. Barrera said she was able to prove that the check was not stolen, but Esparza was still prosecuted for illegal reentry after deportation and sentenced to one year in federal prison. The prosecutors had pushed for a 37-month sentence, Barrera said.

"I can understand the law is the law," Barrera said, "but to send her to prison for what they wanted -- I think that's outrageous."

Even within the U.S. attorney's office, some prosecutors -- particularly veteran lawyers who have risen to supervisory levels -- have regarded the cases as distractions that take time away from more meaningful work.

William Carter, who was chief of the environmental section when he resigned in 2006, said he recalled some illegal re-entry cases that were triggered by relatively minor crimes such as DUIs, traffic offenses and even jaywalking.

"With some of these cases, why are we bothering?" he said. "You need to do something about the border. You don't do it by throwing people in jail."

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anna.gorman@latimes.com

scott.glover@latimes.com