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Immigration See other Immigration Articles Title: Great game plan, feds: Keep the felon, deport the scholars Great game plan, feds: Jul. 13, 2005 12:00 AM Let's see if I've got this straight. Four high school students brought here illegally when they were tots. Never in trouble. Get good grades. Build a solar-powered boat and do it so well that they're invited to a competition in upstate New York. Nabbed while sightseeing at Niagara Falls on the U.S.-Canadian border. One construction worker sneaks across the border. Beats his wife. Steals from his employer. Has three criminal convictions and one alias. Four boat builders. One felon. Can you guess which the feds are deporting? Comes now the explanation for why federal immigration authorities have the time and resources to go after Yuliana Huicochea and her three former classmates at Wilson Charter High School. It's because they let people like Rodrigo Cervantes Zavala walk the streets. Now, just nine months after Cervantes Zavala was allowed to go free, three people are dead and two children are missing. It's enough to make you sick, to watch the vast resources of the U.S. government go after four kids while ignoring Cervantes Zavala for a decade. According to court records, the guy was born in Mexico, where he got through sixth grade. He worked for Mesa Insulation Specialists for 10 years before being fired in 2002 over suspicions that he was stealing. He has two misdemeanor assault convictions in Glendale. The first in 1995, after he pushed his common-law wife to the ground and hit her. The second in 1998, when he grabbed her by the hair, punched her in the nose and threw her out the door. Our hero next comes into the system at 1:40 a.m. March 31, 2004, when Phoenix police catch him and another man stealing $3,298 worth of material from his former employer. He was charged with three felonies: burglary, theft and a weapons violation stemming from his sawed-off shotgun. He pleaded guilty to burglary in September on the condition that the other charges be dropped. Under terms of the deal offered by prosecutors, Cervantes Zavala was to get probation, community service and he had to forfeit his sawed-off shotgun. Records show everybody knew this guy was here illegally. The Probation Department notified both immigration authorities and the judge. "He is working full time in construction in Mesa, Arizona," a pre-sentence investigator wrote. "However, he was unable to provide a name of a company or his supervisor's name as he is in the United States illegally and is paid in cash." Superior Court Judge Jeffrey Cates sentenced Cervantes Zavala to two years' probation Oct. 18 and ordered that Immigration and Customs Enforcement be notified. For all the good that did. Late Sunday, three people were shot to death in Queen Creek and two children were kidnapped. Now, police are searching for the kids' father, Cervantes Zavala. Cates has retired, but Mike Goss, deputy chief of Adult Probation, said the judge would have had no legal right to detain Cervantes Zavala for being here illegally unless ICE put a hold on him. Russell Ahr, Arizona's ICE spokesman, was attending Tuesday's immigration summit in Flagstaff and said he hasn't yet reviewed the case. "I really don't have any way to explain it at this time," he said. Meanwhile, Mesa Insulation, the company that employed Cervantes Zavala for 10 years, has not been fined, according to ICE records. In fact, not a single Arizona employer has been fined for hiring undocumented immigrants since 2001. Not one. But take heart. Yuliana and her classmates are due in immigration court July 21, where they will likely be deported. Making America a safer place.
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