Illegal Immigrant Won’t Be Deported For 3 Years
Jesus Emmanuel Lopez-Garcia, originally a resident of Mexico, has been living in Kalamazoo for some time now. The problem though is that he is a not a legal resident of the U.S., which means that he is here without the knowledge or permission of the U.S. government. But that’s only part of the problem.
Garcia was recently sentenced to spend three years in prison for the role he played in providing illegal immigrants with falsified documents. Court records show that he was one of a group of illegals here in Michigan creating and selling counterfeit immigration documents. The others involved in the scheme with Garcia are Victor Hugo Quesada-Pacheco, and Jaime Velasco-Jimenez.
According to law enforcement, the three men have sold forged immigration documents to undercover informants on four separate occasions over the course of a year. These documents included driver’s licenses, social security cards and state IDs.
The forged documents were created in an apartment in Kalamazoo, and sold to customers all over the western side of Michigan. Apparently an average customer paid anywhere between just under one hundred dollars to over two hundred and twenty five dollars for a fake ID package.
Garcia apparently came to the U.S. originally in 2005. He hoped to earn money to help his mother afford medications that she needed. He met Velasco-Jimenez in Georgia, and the pair started a document forgery business together, providing other illegals with the paperwork they needed to live in the U.S.
But the very next year, Garcia was caught and sentenced to prison. He was deported after his sentence was completed, but returned to the U.S. in 2013. According to his attorney, he attempted at first to earn a living with a regular job, but the temptation of easy money was too much to resist.
Garcia, along with Quesada-Pacheco and Velasco-Jimenez, were all charged with numerous felony counts in connection with the forgery. However, all three accepted plea bargains, and pled guilty to single counts of conspiracy to produce and traffic counterfeit immigration documents.
Quesada-Pacheco and Velasco-Jimenez are both scheduled for sentencing in September, in the U.S. District Court in Grand Rapids. Garcia was sentenced several days ago. He will serve three years in a U.S. prison before being deported to Mexico.