Guatemalan Man Guilty Of Illegally Reentering The United States After Previous Deportation

            CONCORD, NEW HAMPSHIRE – United States Attorney Emily Gray Rice announced  today that Victor Lopez, of Guatemala, pleaded guilty to illegally reentering the United States after having been previously deported.                                        

          On February 15, 2016, a New Hampshire State Police Trooper stopped a vehicle for speeding on I-93 in Windham.  There were five individuals in the vehicle.  Two of the individuals provided the Trooper with foreign ID cards, and the defendant and two others refused to provide identification and refused to answer any questions.  The Trooper requested that the ICE ERO Deportation Officer respond to assist with the identification of those three individuals in the vehicle.  Using a mobile identification unit, one of the Deportation Officers submitted the defendant’s fingerprints to the Department of Homeland Security’s Automated Biometric Identification System (IDENT) for comparison to databases of known fingerprints.  IDENT indicated that the fingerprint impressions submitted were a match to those taken from the defendant, Victor Lopez, on the occasion of his previous deportation from the United States to Guatemala.                                                                                        

          Following the receipt of this information, the Deportation Officer asked the defendant if he had any immigration documents that allowed him to be present in the U.S. to which he replied, “No.”   A full set of digital fingerprint impressions were obtained from the defendant and again submitted to the Department of Homeland Security’s Automated Biometric Identification System (IDENT) which confirmed that the fingerprints were an exact match to prints taken from the defendant on the occasion of his previous deportation to Guatemala in 2012.

          Mr. Lopez’s sentencing has been set for July 7, 2016, and he will again be deported after serving his sentence.

          The case was investigated by the Department of Homeland Security and the New Hampshire State Police and is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Alfred Rubega.

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