2024-01-01 01:24:33
Marco Flores, an immigrant from El Salvador who arrived in the United States when he was 6 years old, has served 13 years of his sentence for killing a man who sexually abused him when he was just a child. Now, he is fighting to avoid being deported.
Flores has been imprisoned since he was 17, when he took the law into his own hands and killed his neighbor Jaime Galdamez, 31, who had been his babysitter and sexually abused him in his childhood, according to the newspaper. The New York Times.
Flores strangled Galdamez and then set his body on fire in his Boston, Massachusetts, apartment in May 2011. He had seen the photo of his 6-year-old nephew in his neighbor’s basement and his mother had told him that he would soon be dead. she would move into her home to care for the child. The young Salvadoran’s defense lawyers alleged that at that time, when he was only 17 years old, he thought that this would be the only way to protect the minor from what he had suffered.
When police searched Galdamez’s apartment they found numerous videos and photos of young children on a hard drive and online conversations about how to abuse children without getting caught. They later determined that the man had abused Flores between the ages of 9 and 14.
In 2013, Flores pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter, because the public defender assigned to the case advised the family that it was better to reach an agreement with the Prosecutor’s Office than risk being found guilty by a jury and ending up sentenced to life in prison.
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The Souza-Baranowski Correctional Center in Lancaster, Massachusetts, where Marco Flores was imprisoned from 2011 to December 2023.Elise Amendola / AP
His 15-year sentence was reduced to 13 years for good behavior, but when he was about to serve it, this December, instead of being released, he was handed over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). .
The federal government prioritizes the deportation of foreigners who have been convicted of violent crimes. And at a time when irregular immigration has become one of politicians’ main campaign issues ahead of the 2024 presidential election, people with convictions like Flores have little chance of avoiding deportation.
Still, Flores’ lawyers told The New York Times that he is hopeful that he will not be deported and that he will be allowed to rebuild his life in the United States instead of being taken to a country he left as a child and barely It has memories or links.
Although his case is an uphill legal battle, there is precedent for foreigners avoiding deportation despite having committed a violent crime.
Experts consulted by The New York Times explain that immigration judges can stop the deportation of a foreigner, even if it is someone who committed a violent crime, if they consider that the chances of him doing it again are almost zero and if he can establish that his life is in danger in his country of origin.
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Flores’ wife, Diana Flores, who married him while he was in prison, has said that her partner’s life is in danger in El Salvador, where gang violence kills hundreds every year and Nayib Bukele’s government has initiated a campaign of arrests plagued by arbitrariness. In addition, the fear of suffering revenge from Galdamez’s relatives.
“We would live our entire lives watching each other’s backs,” said Diana Flores to the aforementioned media, indicating that she would also travel to El Salvador if her husband is deported.
The Department of Justice, which oversees immigration courts, did not respond to a request for comment from the aforementioned media. Flores’ deportation hearing does not yet have a scheduled date.
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