WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senators from Iowa and Nebraska are demanding an explanation for why the Obama Administration didn’t detain an undocumented immigrant charged in an Omaha drunk driving incident that led to the death of a young Iowan. Senators Chuck Grassley, Deb Fischer, Joni Ernst and Ben Sasse are not satisfied with a top immigration official’s claims that the driver did not meet the agency’s enforcement priorities because the victim had not yet died from her injuries at the time it was contacted.
Eswin Mejia, 19, was drag racing with a blood-alcohol level three times the legal limit when his vehicle collided with that of 21-year-old Sarah Root on January 31. Despite repeated requests by Omaha law enforcement, and the fact that Mejia had a history of skipping court dates, Immigration and Customs Enforcement refused to issue a detainer for Mejia, who was released on bond on February 5. Mejia failed to report to his subsequent court hearing and remains at large.
“We are baffled by your testimony that when drunk driving results in serious injury it may not be an enforcement priority, but when it results in death it is,” the Senators wrote in a letter to ICE Assistant Secretary Sarah Saldaña. “We would appreciate a full explanation as to why [Mejia] would be an enforcement priority today, but was not an enforcement priority on February 5, 2016, when – as we understand it – ICE had all of the same information then that it does now.”
The Senators’ letter follows a recent Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing, in which Saldaña testified that Mejia was not detained by immigration officials because the agency didn’t have enough time to respond and that Root was injured – not dead – when she claims ICE was first notified. The Senators are now calling on ICE to provide a full timeline of its involvement in the case, any records related to Mejia, and clear explanations for how ICE arrived at its decision not to detain Mejia.
