Coyote TV - High Desert Advocate

Wendover’s ‘Penitent’ Deported

Written by Howard Copelan

Friday, 30 July 2010

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The most well known of the Wendover Eight, Tomas Soriano Rodriguez became the fourth memberof the group be deported back to Mexico, last week.
    Rodriguez was deported last Thursday according to Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokeswoman Virginia Kice.
    Of the eight arrested, the one most known to most of Wendover was that of Tomas Soriano-Rodriguez, if not by name than by actions.
    Every Christmas, Easter and often on non-holidays, Soriano could be seen crawling on his knees on Wendover Boulevard to the Mission San Felipe, local Catholic Church, in apparent penance for an undisclosed sin.
    He joins Gustavo Sandoval, Edwin Mendoza-Chavez, Fernando Reyes Escobedo who have also been deported to Mexico.

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Last month Utah based ICE agents armed with assault rifles and backed up by a Black hawk helicopter descended on the border town to conduct a 13 hours long raid on both sides of the Nevada/Utah state line.
   Ten Wendover men were taken in ICE custody. Two of the 10 were released that day after their documentation was found to be in order. The remaining eight were booked into the Salt Lake county Jail to await their hearings in Immigration court.
   All of the eight arrested were identified by ICE as ‘international gang members. However a search of local law enforcement revealed just one of the eight had serious rap sheet.
   A week after their arrests the Wendover eight were transferred to the long term ICE holding facility at the Utah County Jail in Spanish Fork.
   According to a spokesman at the Utah County Jail the steady pace of the deportations, one a week, is a little unusual.
   “Generally Thursday is the big day for deportations,” he said. “They deport about 50 to 60 on that day alone and then it slows to like one or two for the rest of week. It is kind of unusual that the ones who are still here are still here after more than a month but on the hand we have had some illegals here for a year.”

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“We can’t proceed with an alien’s removal until we have a final removal order...or a signed agreement of voluntary return...along with documents ensuring that the receiving country will accept the returning alien.” Kice wrote in a Tuesday e-mail. “All of the gang members and associates arrested in the Wendover operation were formally removed from the United States.”

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