Olga Marina Franco del Cid, an illegal alien from Guatemala, was found guilty on 24 charges, including four counts of criminal vehicular homicide, back in 2008. She ran a stop sign in Cottonwood, Minnesota, and crashed into a school bus with 28 children on board. Four children under the age of 13 were killed in the crash. Franco del Cid was given a 12-and-a-half year sentence, of which she served eight years at Minnesota Correctional Facility-Shakopee before being released. A few days after the crash, ICE officials said she had used a stolen identity to come to the United States from Guatemala. In 2015, a judge ordered her removal from the United States, and she was deported on May 4, 2016.
That should have been the end of the story, but Franco del Cid is back in he news again. Last November, she was arrested by immigration officers in Inver Grove Heights, Minnesota, after they received a tip that she had returned to Minnesota. In a country as big as the United States, one would think that she would have attempted to hide out in another part of the country where she was less known, but such logic apparently escaped this habitual lawbreaker.
The St. Paul Pioneer Press reported on June 11 that while she was in prison, Franco del Cid began corresponding with a Minnesota man, to whom she was married in 2009, and they have a child together. However, he filed for divorce last October, according to a court document.
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ICE officials said Franco del Cid returned to the United States sometime between late 2016 and 2019 and was living less than three hours away from where her reckless driving resulted in the deaths of four innocent children back in 2008.
“This individual has committed a very serious crime in this state,” ICE official Shawn Neudauer told FOX 9 news in Minneapolis-St. Paul following her arrest last November. “Beyond serving her sentence, there is a penalty for coming back after you’ve been told you have to leave.”
The New American quoted a statement from federal prosecutors in December, which said, “On Nov. 26, 2019, the defendant [Franco del Cid] was found in the United States in violation of this previous removal.” Federal prosecutors also charged her with “identification fraud in the form of use of a false Permanent Resident Card [more commonly known as a “green card”] and social security fraud for falsely representing a social security number on an Employment Eligibility Verification Form I-9.”
Franco del Cid was sentenced to two years in prison on June 11 in U.S. District Court in St. Paul after pleading guilty to illegal reentry after removal from the country and using a false Social Security number.
After she has served her sentence, this illegal alien will be deported again, according to an ICE spokesman.
Image: designer491/iStock/Getty Images Plus
Warren Mass has served The New American since its launch in 1985 in several capacities, including marketing, editing, and writing. Since retiring from the staff several years ago, he has been a regular contributor to the magazine. Warren writes from Texas and can be reached at [email protected].
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