On March 9, Omar Aviles-Roman crossed the U.S. border illegally near Douglas, Ariz. He made it as far as the Kansas Turnpike east of Lawrence, where a Kansas Highway Patrol trooper stopped a truck in which he was riding with 17 other people – 11 of them packed into the truck’s covered bed.

A check through immigration records showed he had been deported and sent back to Mexico just six months earlier after being convicted in Kentucky of dealing drugs. He’s now behind bars in Kansas awaiting trial for illegally entering the country after being deported for a felony.

Aviles-Roman is one of a growing number of illegal immigrants caught in Kansas who are facing prison time for crimes such as forgery of Social Security documents, alien smuggling and illegal re-entry. The number of immigration-related criminal cases filed by U.S. Atty. Eric Melgren’s office has roughly doubled in the last five years, from 47 cases in 2000 to 95 in 2005.

This year’s total is likely to be higher, with 70 cases filed so far. Assistant U.S. Atty. Brent Anderson attributes the increase to better abilities to track people who previously have been deported, as well as greater awareness by law enforcement.

“When they see a Ford F-150 with a camper shell that has spray paint across the windows and it looks like it’s overloaded, that’s a pretty good clue to them that it’s full of people,” he said.

Most commonly, he said, the cases come to light from people getting in trouble on a nonimmigration matter – for example, a DUI or traffic violation – or from filing a workers’ compensation claim under a false Social Security number.

Most ‘let loose’

Despite the growing number of criminal cases, Anderson said most illegal immigrants who came in contact with law enforcement in Kansas simply were released. In a typical truckload of 20 people, two or three may be flagged as worthy of prosecuting and the rest are sent on their way, he said.

“If ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) doesn’t have the bed space or the resources to detain them or ship them back to Mexico, they’re basically turned over, processed and let loose,” he said.

Sometimes they’re given paperwork ordering them to appear in front of an immigration judge in Kansas City or, if they agree to it, to remove themselves from the United States within two weeks, Anderson said. They also may be put in contact with area social service agencies, he said.

Carl Rusnok, a Dallas-based spokesman for ICE’s central region, acknowledged there are times when the agency isn’t able to send officers from its Wichita and Kansas City offices to respond when local police agencies contact them.

“If the ICE officers are preoccupied with handling criminal aliens or other operational issues which are a higher priority, they may just say, ‘You know what, we’d love to pick them up, but we just don’t have the manpower or time to get there,'” he said.

Setting priorities

Filing charges against immigrants who forge documents to get a job in the U.S. is especially important in a post-Sept. 11 era, said Jim Cross, a spokesman for Melgren. They typically face charges including identity theft, mail fraud and misuse of a Social Security number.

“We’re not going to sit by and watch the system get to the point where anybody can do it and get away with it and we won’t know the difference,” he said.

Charles Dedmon, a federal public defender in Kansas City, Kan., said there are ways that aren’t being used to find more document fraud cases. For example, he said, prosecutors might subpoena the records of employers who have a history of hiring illegal immigrants and then run the Social Security numbers to see which ones come up as fictitious.

“It would be very easy to find,” he said. “But it would give them numbers of people who are working, not creating trouble, and have no record. That’s not their priority.”