ICE Requests Notification, Custody Of Undocumented Immigrant Suspected Of Killing 22-Year-Old San Jose Woman
FREMONT (CBS / AP) -- Immigration officials are requesting notification from local law enforcement in the event that an undocumented immigrant suspected in the murder of a 22-year-old San Jose woman be released from their custody.
Esmid Valentine Pedraza, 23, of Hayward was arrested Wednesday on a homicide warrant by Fremont Police Department detectives in connection with the murder of Stacey Aguilar.
Immigration officials released this statement Thursday, "U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has lodged a formal request with the Alameda County Jail seeking to have the jail notify ICE prior to Mr. Pedraza's release so the agency can arrange to take him into custody to pursue possible follow-up immigration enforcement action."
Aguilar's family reported her missing on Feb. 16 and Hayward detectives found her body in a rural area off of Morrison Canyon Road in Fremont at about noon on Saturday.
Pedraza is expected to appear in court Friday.
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ICE's request comes just one day after U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch said that immigration authorities will now get priority over inmates wanted for deportation who are released from federal prison instead of local law enforcement agencies.
Lynch's comments come less than a year after 32-year-old Kate Steinle was shot to death on a San Francisco pier allegedly by an undocumented immigrant who was transferred from federal prison to San Francisco authorities and released instead of being deported for a sixth time.
Steinle's death sparked a national debate over immigration after it was revealed that the San Francisco sheriff's department had taken Juan Francisco Lopez-Sanchez into custody and then released him despite a request by immigration officials to detain him for deportation.
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Lynch said the federal Bureau of Prisons will give ICE the option to take inmates facing deportation into custody and that local law enforcement agencies seeking to prosecute those inmates on other crimes will need to ensure they will return them to immigration authorities once their criminal cases have ended.
"This may have the effect that there may be local cases that may not be able to be prosecuted because, again, the person will be taken into ICE custody and then deported," Lynch told a House Appropriations subcommittee. "And if a jurisdiction has a concern over that, we will talk to them, but we would have to have assurances that ICE would also then be able to get the individual back."
By Hannah Albarazi - Follow her on Twitter: @hannahalbarazi.
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