Home a safe haven for Mexican suspects

Hundreds of Mexican citizens suspected of committing violent crimes in the United States have escaped justice by slipping across America’s porous southern border into Mexico, which refuses to extradite suspects facing the death penalty or life imprisonment.

Authorities have identified more than a dozen cases in which illegal aliens were accused of injuring or killing a U.S. law-enforcement officer but are believed to have fled to Mexico.

President Bush’s plan to grant legal status to millions of illegal immigrants employed in the United States raises questions about whether Mexico may agree to start extraditing suspects in all U.S. crimes.

“One of the things would be cooperation on extraditions,” said Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, a Washington think tank supporting tighter controls on immigration.

Mr. Bush heads Monday to the Summit of the Americas in Monterrey, Mexico, and a White House spokesman yesterday did not know whether the president plans to discuss extradition with Mexican President Vicente Fox. Mr. Fox has been seeking greater access to U.S. jobs for Mexicans and praised Mr. Bush’s immigration proposal Wednesday.

U.S. officials don’t have information on the number of violent criminals hiding in Mexico, but they believe the number is at least in the hundreds. District attorneys in most states don’t keep records of crimes committed by illegal aliens, even ones who have fled.

In California, officials estimate some 350 violent felons have fled south seeking protection of a Mexican Supreme Court ruling that the death penalty and life in prison without parole represent cruel and unusual punishment.

Sen. Diane Feinstein, California Democrat, introduced a Senate resolution last month calling on Mr. Bush to put pressure on Mexico to ensure suspects wanted for serious crimes can be extradited.

“Many of these people are living free and unpunished in Mexico,” she told reporters in California. “In some cases, we even know where they are.”

Perhaps the most high-profile case is the April 2002 murder of Los Angeles Deputy Sheriff David March, who was shot execution-style during a traffic stop. The prime suspect is Mexican national Armando Garcia, said to have fled south after the murder.

“He’s believed to be somewhere in Mexico,” said Sandi Gibbons, spokeswoman for the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office.

Mrs. Gibbons said the office has been working so far unsuccessfully with federal officials in the State and Justice departments to get Mr. Garcia and others returned from Mexico for trial.

“We feel that if a person commits a crime here, especially if they kill someone here, that they need to be brought back here to be brought to justice,” she said. “This is where the victims are.”

Mrs. Gibbons noted Mexico’s refusal to extradite criminals applies only to Mexican citizens. There have been cases, she said, of non-Mexican nationals who have been extradited and tried in the United States.

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