Border re-crossing draws 7-year term

KANSAS CITY, Kan. — A Mexican citizen who has lived in the U.S. for most of his life and compiled a long criminal record has been sentenced to nearly seven years in prison for illegally re-entering the country after his fourth deportation.

Jorge Carrillo-Hernandez, 37, was sentenced Monday in federal court in Kansas City, Kan., to four years and nine months in prison for illegally returning to the United States. The judge added two years to that sentence, to be served consecutively, because he returned while on probation for one of his convictions.

Carrillo-Hernandez has a criminal record in Wyandotte and Johnson counties in Kansas that began in 2000, when he was charged with driving under the influence. The U.S. attorney’s office said in a news release that from 2003 to 2013, he was convicted of aggravated assault, aggravated battery, domestic battery, three times for driving under the influence, and twice for illegal re-entry following deportation after convictions for aggravated felonies.

He came to the attention of Immigration and Customs Enforcement again after his fourth drunken driving arrest in April 2017.

Carrillo-Hernandez first came to the U.S. with his family when he was 8 months old and has lived in the Kansas City area since he was a teenager, The Kansas City Star reported. After his previous convictions, he was deported in 2003, 2009, 2012 and 2016.

Deported people who return illegally to the U.S. face a one- to two-year sentence when federal prosecutors press felony charges. Longer sentences such as those given to Carrillo-Her- nandez are imposed on “frequent fliers,” said James Cross, a spokesman for U.S. Attorney Stephen McAllister.

Carrillo-Hernandez’s public defender, Laquisha Ross, said her client continued to return to the U.S. because he has lived in the country most of his life and his family, including two children, live in the Kansas City area.