DELANO, Calif. _ Kern County prosecutors Wednesday said they will not file charges against federal immigration agents involved in a crash that killed two farmworkers trying to flee from the agents.
The two Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, Ramiro Sanchez and Dimas Benitez, faced misdemeanor charges of giving false information to police after statements they made to Delano officers were contradicted by surveillance video.
"There is no credible evidence that either agent lied," said Kern County District Attorney Lisa Green. "And second, I do not believe legally ... we can pursue charges of giving false information to a peace officer."
Sanchez and Benitez came under scrutiny after the March 13 crash that killed Santos Hilario Garcia and Marcelina Garcia Profecto. The couple, who were in the country illegally, had initially stopped when one of the agents put on his emergency lights to pull them over, but then fled before crashing into a utility pole at high speed.
According to a report, an ICE deportation officer told police that, after the initial stop, he was not in "pursuit with emergency lights/sirens." But surveillance video showed the immigration officers' cars traveling in the same direction as the couple's vehicle with their emergency lights activated.
"As to the lights, which were on, it is a reasonable interpretation of the evidence that the emergency lights that were activated for the traffic stop remained on after he jumped in his vehicle to follow the Ford," Green said.
Sanchez, one of the deportation officers, told police that on the morning of the crash, he and colleagues were conducting surveillance on an apartment in order to detain Celestino Hilario-Garcia, who was targeted for removal from the country.
Sanchez said that a colleague witnessed Santos Hilario Garcia, whom they mistook for Celestino Hilario-Garcia, enter a vehicle in front of the apartment, along with a woman and a girl.
Sanchez and Benitez followed the car in black, unmarked Jeeps as the couple dropped their daughter off at school. Shortly afterward, Sanchez activated his emergency lights to signal the car to pull over.
Santos Hilario Garcia complied, but as Sanchez got out of his car, the couple's vehicle sped away, the report said, and eventually crashed. Garcia, 35, and, Profecto, 33, both died at the scene.
Though Garcia matched the description of the arrest target, he was not the same individual, according to ICE.
Santos Hilario Garcia had been convicted in 2014 of driving under the influence and was voluntarily returned to Mexico three times between 2008 and 2017. Last year, he was removed under the provisions of expedited removal. Profecto had no prior encounters with ICE.
In an earlier statement, the immigration agency cited sanctuary policies that "have pushed ICE out of jails" and "force our officers to conduct more enforcement in the community _ which poses increased risks for law enforcement and the public."
"It also increases the likelihood that ICE will encounter other illegal aliens who previously weren't on our radar," ICE spokesman Richard Rocha said.
The case came amid rising tension between local agencies and ICE in California, as officials and police have to choose whether they will cooperate more with the immigration agency or abide by the state's "sanctuary" laws, intended to protect immigrants in the country illegally.
Alvizo has stressed that in referring the case to the district attorney, his department was only trying to do its "due diligence."
"It's not any different than say, for example, you were involved in a traffic accident and there was some issues there. We're going to send it to our D.A.," Alvizo said in an interview last week. "Because we don't want anybody to come back and say that we're hiding or we're trying to cover up for anybody. We're doing it the way we do it for anybody else."
