Hugo Cardona-Jiminez will be returning to his native Guatemala on his third deportation following a hearing this morning at the federal courthouse in downtown St. Paul.
Your correspondent was there. Cardona, now aged 31, entered a guilty plea to a federal felony criminal charge of illegal re-entry of a previously deported alien. Court records show previous deportatations in 2019 and 2020.
I wrote about his case last month. Cardona was picked up in September on a state drunk driving charge (BAC 0.364, not a typo). It was his fourth such case and resulted in a felony conviction. He was indicted on the federal illegal immigration felony back in November.
As soon as he was available in April, he was picked up by ICE and entered the U.S. Dept. of Justice’s Fast Track program.
After entering his guilty plea today, he was sentenced to federal time served (52 days) and will soon be returning to Guatemala, now a twice-convicted felon. In the normal course of things, his drunk driving felony would have resulted in a sentencing minimum of six months in federal prision. Everyone involved agreed to no additional prison time in order to speed Carbona’s return.
Two observations from today’s court hearing.
First, despite the Fast Track nature of the federal case, today’s hearing still required a presiding judge, several court clerks, a prosecutor, a probation officer, a taxpayer-paid, Spanish-language interpreter, a taxpayer-paid defense attorney, two (2) deputy U.S. Marshals to escort the defendant, and a courtroom security guard. That’s a minimum of eleven (11) people on the taxpayer payroll assembled for one hour-long hearing whose result was pre-ordained.
That’s not counting the half-dozen or so well-dressed people sitting along with me in the gallery, whose role and employer I could not determine.
That Carbona would be deported again was obvious to all involved once he was arrested (again) for drunk driving last year. But he received his full measure of due process at every step.
Second, during today’s hearing, Carbona reported that he reached only the sixth grade in his formal education. Not to knock the young man, but this fact flies in the face of the accepted narrative that every single immigrant arrives in America with at least an advanced degree in medicine or engineering. In my multi-year study of Minnesota Men, I have encountered no such cases. Not one.
Adios, Hugo, adios!
