Illegal alien deported 7 times racked up 6 DUI arrests while in the US

An illegal immigrant not only returned to the United States after being deported seven times, the Justice Department says, he also accumulated six drunk driving arrests while he was here.

A Tuesday news release from the United States attorney's office for the Middle District of Tennessee says that Jose Lopez-Ruiz, a 39-year-old illegal alien from Guatemala, pleaded guilty in federal court to illegal re-entry into the United States, which is a felony offense.

Lopez-Ruiz, the release said, was encountered by federal authorities in May while Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) was in the process of apprehending someone else. He fled on foot and wasn't apprehended until months later on July 9, when ERO personnel followed a tip that led them to the fugitive in Madison, Tennessee.

The re-entrant's long history as an immigration violator goes back almost 20 years, the Justice Department says. His first deportation from the United States was in 2000, and his most recent of his total seven was in 2018. During his time in the U.S. interior, the release adds, the illegal alien was convicted of driving under the influence five times with a sixth charge pending, though it does not specify where those arrests occurred or if they led to his previous deportations. He faces up to two years in federal prison when he goes up for sentencing in January.

A Justice Department report from August shows that a 72 percent majority of federal prosecutions against non-citizens are for illegal re-entry, while a mere .3 percent of them are made against first-time violators.

Unlike numerous other cases of illegal alien drunk driving in recent years, Lopez-Ruiz's actions haven't been tied to anyone's death. Last month, an illegal immigrant was charged with the drunk driving death of a retired NYPD officer. A 19-year-old illegal alien was charged with killing a 52-year-old Minnesota father of 10 children in April. An illegal Mexican immigrant killed three while allegedly driving drunk in May. That same month, two Californians were killed in collisions within hours of each other in different parts of the state; both suspects were illegal aliens, and both were arrested for drunk driving.

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