A Mexican man who was previously deported seven times by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, and until recently had been living in northeastern Iowa, has been sentenced to roughly two years in prison after entering an eighth time and being caught in possession of an illegal gun.
Chief U.S. District Court Judge Leonard T. Strand of the Northern District of Iowa sentenced 40-year-old Luis Alberto DeLoera-Serna to 21 months in federal prison last Friday after he pleaded guilty to one count of possessing a firearm by a prohibited person. He will also serve two years of supervised release.
However, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which handles the removal of people found to be in the U.S. illegally, is expected to take custody of DeLoera-Serna when his sentence concludes in order to deport the convicted felon for an eighth time.
“Evidence produced at the change of plea and sentencing hearings revealed DeLoera-Serna was not only an alien illegally in the United States, and drug user who possessed a firearm, but he was also an armed drug dealer with a criminal history. That history included domestic violence, traffic offenses, and seven illegal re-entries into the United States,” the agency said in a news release.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s other arm, Homeland Security Investigations, worked with the Sioux City Police Department in the investigation that led to the charges, though it’s not clear what led to DeLorea-Serna’s arrest.
The Justice Department said the case was brought as part of its Project Safe Neighborhoods, which brings together “stakeholders” to go after the “most pressing violence crime problems in the community and develop comprehensive solutions to address them.”
Previously deported noncitizens who reenter and commit a felony face 20 years in federal prison.
Sioux City, Iowa, is 240 miles east of Brooklyn, Iowa, which was at the center of a murder investigation last year after 20-year-old Mollie Tibbetts was found dead in a cornfield. Cristhian Bahena Rivera, an 24-year-old Mexican man believed to be illegally present in the country, was arrested as the main suspect in the case. The trial is scheduled to start in September.
