It may have been a minor oversight the time — but the misstep could have prevented the rape of an 8-year-old girl.
Tom Jackman of the Washington Post reports that immigration authorities failed to enter in a national data base the fingerprints of Salvador Portillo-Saravia before they deported him to El Salvador in 2003. So seven years later, because his fingerprints were not in a data base, Portillo-Saravia, who had sneaked back into the U.S., was released from the Loudoun County Jail in Virginia. A month later, Jackman reports, Fairfax County police say he raped an 8-year-old girl.
In a letter to Rep. Frank R. Wolf (R-Va.) , Elliot Williams, Immigration and Customs Enforcement assistant director for congressional relations, wrote that “the agency policy to enroll the fingerprints in IDENT was not followed, thereby reducing ICE’s ability to thwart this terrible and tragic event.” according to the Post. The paper wrote that ” ICE officials could not say why the prints weren’t entered in 2003.”
The paper reported Portillo-Saravia was captured last month in Houston and is now facing the rape charges.
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