Steve Burns
WMAL.com
WASHINGTON – (WMAL) The man who was the subject of a brief Immigration and Customs Enforcement manhunt Monday afternoon near Dulles International Airport was apparently used to being on the run. Court records show Carlos Rivas-Mendez has been deported five times, all since 2007.
Rivas-Mendez was first picked up by authorities in Loudoun County for public intoxication early Monday morning. The Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office said he was transferred to ICe custody by late Monday morning. By 2:10pm, ICE alerted media that it was looking for Rivas-Mendez near Dulles Airport. A notice that he had been caught was sent out a little over an hour later.
Court records show Rivas-Mendez had complained in the transport van that his handcuffs were on too tight. The van pulled over on the Dulles Greenway. An officer adjusted one of the handcuffs, but was then struck and Rivas-Mendez took off.
Rivas-Mendez used aliases in his attempts to elude authorities, the affidavit said, including Marlo Danilo Rivas Mendez, and Marlon Ribas-Mendez. His deportations occurred in 2007, 2011, 2012, 2014, and 2016.
“We see this far too frequently,” the Center for Immigration Studies’ Jessica Vaughn told WMAL. “It illustrates a number of problems in our immigration enforcement.”
Namely, she said border security needs to be beefed up, punishments need to be harsher, and incentives need to be taken away.
“We need stricter punishments for people who don’t get the message the first time and keep coming back,” she said. “We also need to remove the incentives that keep bringing people back over and over again, and the main thing there is interior immigration enforcement.”
Copyright 2017 by WMAL.com. All Rights Reserved. (PHOTO: ICE)
