Man dies in jail while awaiting deportation

[MoMo]

Man dies in jail while awaiting deportation

The 27-year-old was two days away from being put on a flight back to Mexico. Police are investigating the death.

BY DAVID CHERNICKY
August 28 2004

PORTSMOUTH -- An illegal immigrant awaiting deportation to Mexico was found dead inside his cell at the Hampton Roads Regional Jail early last Sunday morning - just two days before the government planned to return him to his homeland.

Federal officials have reported the death to Mexican authorities in the hopes of notifying the 27-year-old man's family, but without success. Police in Portsmouth, where the jail is located, are continuing their investigation and said the immigrant had marks around his neck.

The man, who was from Mexico City, was one of 211 people housed at the regional jail on immigration violations, said Reed Little, a spokesman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a part of the Department of Homeland Security.

The federal government reimburses states and local governments for the costs of detaining immigration law violators in approved prisons. Virginia has about 500 illegal residents in state and local jails awaiting removal proceedings.

The illegal immigrant was moved to the Hampton Roads jail late last month after his arrest with other suspected illegal immigrants in Northern Virginia. He returned to Arlington on Aug. 6 for a deportation hearing. Little said the man was scheduled to be moved this past Tuesday to Harrisburg, Pa., to take a flight to Mexico with 17 other illegal immigrants.

But at 2:40 a.m. Sunday, a correctional officer discovered the inmate in a cell with a sheet around his neck. The officer contacted immigration officials soon afterward, police said. Federal authorities and Portsmouth police are withholding the identity of the man until the government has confirmation that his family has been notified. The immigration office has been working closely with the Mexican government since it learned of the death of the man last Sunday.

The superintendent of the Hampton Roads jail was on vacation and not available to comment on the death, officials said Friday.

Portsmouth homicide detectives are investigating the death. But because the probe is incomplete, police spokeswoman Ann Hope provided no details.

"At this time we don't know the cause of death," she said. No arrests have been made in connection with the death.

The body was sent to the state medical examiner's office in Norfolk, where it remains. An office spokeswoman said Friday that the cause of the death is pending.

"An inquiry is done whenever anyone dies in custody," Little said. "What that inquiry turns up here we'll just have to wait and see."

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