Immigration arrests interrupting some county criminal cases

For months, immigration enforcement agents have sporadically arrested some defendants in Lake and Porter counties without U.S. citizenship in the middle of their criminal cases, according to Indiana attorneys.

This adds an extra layer of uncertainty – sometimes leaving their families and lawyers scrambling to find them.

When Horacio Alarcon-Roldan, 32, of Diamond, Illinois, showed up for a routine hearing on charges of stealing railroad ties in Porter County on Aug. 1, he was arrested by U.S. Homeland Security, according to federal documents.

U.S. Homeland Security Investigations Special Agent Jason Hines wrote that transit police from the Northern Indiana Commuter Transportation District — that is, South Shore Line — notified them.

Defense attorney Steve Mullins argued that Alarcon-Roldan was a middleman in the scheme.

When Alarcon-Roldan left the Porter County courthouse that day, Mullins had more clients to appear during the court call. By the time he finished, he was told ICE had arrested his client. At first it was difficult to find information about where he had been taken.

“We got no response,” the lawyer said.

For Alarcon-Roldan’s loved ones, it was “terrible,” he said.

Mullins later learned he was in the Porter County Jail. His client has a new court date in December. In fact, the county’s case is on hold until the federal immigration case is completed. Then it depends on what Porter County prosecutors want to do, he said.

Alarcon-Roldan is charged with re-entry of a deported alien, a federal crime, scheduled for trial in March. Another customer was arrested while leaving Lake County Criminal Court. Mullins, a lawyer since 1981, said it was the first time he had seen clients arrested by immigration in the middle of a trial.

“From our perspective, our work with our (undocumented) clients, we have to look to the future,” he said. Today, some are “ripped out before we even know what’s happening.”

There appears to be “no rhyme or reason” to who is detained, he said.

“No one will tell us if our client is at the top of the priority list,” he said. “We are not in a position to ask for this. We are caught in no man’s land.”

Mullins said he had “no warning” that Alarcon-Roldan was about to be arrested that day in Porter County. His client was free on bail and attending a routine hearing.

“If we think there’s an immigration issue, we certainly need to warn them because of the current political climate. You’re in danger,” Mullins said, adding that he knew Alarcon-Roldan’s immigration status and informed him accordingly, but also told him, “You need to come forward.”

Porter County Prosecutor Gary Germann said Alarcon-Roldan’s case is the only one he knows of in Porter County, but there could be others. He was attending a routine hearing in Porter Superior Court Judge Michael Fish’s courtroom the day Alarcon-Roldan was taken into custody.

So far, Germann said, the intensified immigration controls have not had an impact on people who show up in court, whether witnesses or defendants.

As for the Alarcon-Roldan felony theft cases, Germann is waiting for the federal immigration case to be resolved before deciding how to proceed with the state case.

“We will resolve the case one way or another,” Germann said, adding that he has not yet decided whether to dismiss the case against Alarcon-Roldan if he is deported because it is a criminal charge involving theft of several thousand dollars.

A plea deal, Germann said, would at least get a conviction in his case in state court.

“It’s new for us too,” he said.

U.S. Homeland Security did not respond to a request for comment. The U.S. attorney’s office in Hammond declined to comment, citing the government shutdown.

“During the current expiration of the appropriations, DOJ’s operations are focused on national security, violations of federal law, and essential public safety functions. Investigations outside of these functions will be reviewed when the expiration of the appropriations ends,” spokeswoman Morgan Swistek said in an email.

Lake County Prosecutor Bernie Carter did not respond to an interview request.

“The Lake County Prosecutor’s Office is not informed in advance,” spokeswoman Myrna Maldonado said in an email Friday. “In our experience, ICE is not involved until the defendant has served their sentence.”

Defense attorney John Cantrell said five clients had recently been taken away by immigration authorities.

Lake County prosecutors charged Heriberto Caceres and Deiby Caceres-Meija, a male relative, in August 2024 with beating a man bloody in their Crown Point apartment, records show.

Caceres was angry because the apartment was messy. When he was about to hit a woman, the victim interceded. Caceres and Caceres-Meija “jumped on him”, before the latter suffocated the victim for a few minutes while two children were nearby. In the melee, Cáceres-Meija slapped the older child, who tried to intervene, according to an affidavit.

When their domestic battery case was dismissed in July, immigration officials arrested them shortly afterward, the attorney said. When asked, Cantrell said it didn’t matter that their criminal case made them unlikeable.

“Every person is presumed innocent” and entitled to “due process,” he said. Without conviction, legally, “they did nothing wrong”.

Another customer, Israel Ticante Cruz, 19, was charged in June after leading East Chicago police on a chase in April with two children in the car. After immigration authorities took him into custody, Cantrell said he still did not know where he was.

I usually don’t know until “the family contacts me,” he said.

Noncitizens accused of violent crimes have long faced deportation if convicted — a practice that dates back to several U.S. administrations — especially as the U.S. Congress expanded the list of deportable crimes in the mid-1990s.

Before this year, undocumented defendants were only arrested after being convicted, he said. A lawyer for more than two decades, he said he’s also never seen a client caught in the middle of a case.

An immigration record for Caceres, Caceres-Meija or Cruz could not immediately be found in federal records or ICE’s online locator.

The jail notifies immigration of undocumented detainees, Lake County Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman Pam Jones said in an email.

“A report is regularly issued to immigration officials listing Lake County Jail inmates who are in the United States illegally,” she said. “These detainees are being held in our jail until they have fulfilled their legal obligations to the State of Indiana and Lake County. At that time, either ICE will pick up the detainees or they will be released.”

“We have always reported detainees who are in the United States illegally to ICE,” she said. “We are confident that if immigration officials made any stops or arrests in Lake County, we would be notified for reasons of public safety and the safety of our officers.”

In another domestic battery case, a Lake County prosecutor chose to dismiss the case because the defendant was referred to immigration shortly after his imprisonment.

Herlin Y. Guerrero-Zelaya, 53, was arrested May 17 at his Gary home after allegedly hitting a woman, then grabbing her arm and taking the cellphone when she called 911. Guerrero told responding Gary officers that it was a “misunderstanding” and that he didn’t need “the police,” according to the affidavit.

After he was incarcerated, the Lake County Jail contacted U.S. Homeland Security, according to federal records.

On May 22, he faced an eviction case in federal court. After Lake County released him on his own recognizance on May 23, he was arrested on federal immigration charges a few days later.

He pleaded guilty to readmission of a deported alien and was sentenced to five months in prison in August. The national case in Lake County was dismissed in September. Assistant District Attorney Jacquelyn Altpeter wrote that this was due to his immigration record.

In federal court, some prosecutors are asking to add a one-year period of supervised release, similar to probation, to the expiration of the sentence for defendants who are deported again.

One wrote that it was a “deterrent” so they wouldn’t return. Defendants are usually deported shortly after serving their sentences, making the request seem meaningless.

In reality, if they return to the United States within the year and are arrested again, they will face new charges, and potentially several additional months in prison for violating the old case.

A 45-year-old construction worker — whom the Post-Tribune is not naming — was arrested in March after he showed up to a traffic stop in Gary near Ridge Road and Chase Street to help his son, who was arrested in a car suspected of being stolen.

Hines wrote that the Lake County Sheriff’s Department “contacted” him after the father gave deputies a Mexican ID card during a “car theft investigation,” according to filings. When the Homeland Security agent gave his name, it showed that he had already been deported to Mexico twice.

“During traffic stops, the only way (the sheriff’s department) knows an individual’s immigration status is if that person is arrested,” Jones said. “We do not ask for immigration status during a traffic stop unless the person has committed a crime. When the person is arrested, they are taken to jail and their immigration status is determined in jail.”

The father pleaded guilty to re-entry of a deported alien into Hammond. A judge sentenced him to six months in prison, followed by a year of supervised release.

Previously, the man was arrested in a 2007 drug trafficking case in Dallas. He was expelled shortly after. The drug case is still open. His other family has since been granted asylum.

“My family is here,” he told the Hammond court. “My oldest son was kidnapped (in Mexico). »

“It’s unfortunate,” defense attorney Russell Brown said afterward. “He’s been arrested before, but he’s worked his whole life.”

He spent seven months in prison after trying to help his son.

“For what?” said the lawyer.

mcolias@post-trib.com

alavalley@chicagotribune.com