Woman arrested by ICE in Sugarcreek Twp. had felony related to entering USA
Melania Franco Rios, a citizen of Mexico, had previously been removed from the United States in 2022, per an affidavit filed in the Southern District Court of Ohio by a special agent with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Investigations.
Rios and a man were arrested Jan. 26 in Greene County and taken into custody by ICE. They were originally pulled over by Sugarcreek Twp. police for a fictitious license plate, police records show.
Franco Rios pleaded guilty in October 2022 to a felony of using a false birth certificate to enter the United States, according to the court affidavit. That June, Franco Rios presented an Alabama birth certificate belonging to her sister, telling Texas border agents that she was traveling to the United States to work.
Rios was sentenced to 81 days in prison, but was instead returned to Mexico in late October 2022.
Records obtained by the Dayton Daily News show that Sugarcreek Twp. police conducted a traffic stop on Wilmington Pike around 10:15 a.m. on Jan. 26 on a red Ford F150, as the license plate on the truck belonged to a different car.
Police said they interacted with the male driver, who didn't speak English, and who supplied a Mexico Identification Card and the title of the vehicle. The female passenger, later identified as Franco Rios, translated for police and said she did not have a driver's license.
The driver was found to have a visa that had expired in June 2023, and therefore "was currently in the United States illegally," police documents say, adding that ICE agents were then called.
According to the Homeland Security court affidavit, the group that responded included Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) Deportation Officers (DOs). Using a mobile fingerprinting device, the officers scanned Franco Rios, ran the prints against an immigration database, and identified her and her previous offense.
The affidavit says ERO officers assumed custody of Franco Rios. Court documents say there is probable cause for her to be charged with violating Title 8 of U.S. Code, Section 1326a-b, regarding "reentry of previously removed alien with prior felony conviction," according to the court affidavit.
This development comes as President Donald Trump has promised to increase "expedited removal" of certain immigrants.
Trump's border czar, Thomas Homan, has said recently that the administration's priority is removing violent criminals, but that other people in the United States illegally could be caught in the process.
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