There is new information concerning the recent murder of a St. Tammany paramedic. The man's wife allegedly hired two men to kill him, and now their immigration status is sparking a call for reform.
One day after St. Tammany EMT Mario Scramuzza man was laid to rest, there are new developments about his accused killers.
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The St. Tammany Sheriff's Office says the pair of men allegedly hired to murder Scramuzza are both in this country illegally, 22-year-old Erly Montoya-Matute of Kenner and 26-year-old Luis Rodriguez-Hernandez of Metairie.
The confirmation of their immigration status comes two days after Sheriff Jack Strain first raised the possibility.
"I believe that they are here illegally," said Strain during a news conference on Wednesday. "I believe that they are potentially or possibly Honduran natives. That may change a little bit, there are many small countries down there."
After meeting with the nation's newly appointed director of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano, the sheriff spoke to her top aides about what he sees as the inherent difficulty in trying to find and arrest criminals who are undocumented.
"We can't access the typical data bases that are available to us because these individuals aren't in them," said Strain.
Strain hasn't offered specific statistics as to how often undocumented immigrants commit crimes in the parish, and a spokesperson for the sheriff says it would be difficult to provide Eyewitness News with an estimate.
"If anything the issue is not them committing the crime, it's being victims of crime," said Maria Bermudez, a spokesperson for the Hispanic Apostolate, a non-profit arm of Catholic Charities which provides services to the Hispanic community. Bermudez says far more undocumented workers have been targeted and robbed, then have committed violent crimes, like the recent murder in St. Tammany parish.
"Those are individuals who have made wrong decisions but that should not stereotype the Latino community locally," said Bermudez.
In Jefferson Parish, Sheriff Newell Normand says it is difficult to estimate how many undocumented immigrants live in the area, but he says of the more than 3,000 people arrested by his office each month, about four are later discovered to be in this country illegally.
"For us here, typically they have been more victims than they have been perpetrators," said Normand.
But the sheriff also says the immigration backlog has left the federal government unable to deport offenders unless they're guilty of violent crimes.
"It's very frustrating because we have a jail overcrowding situation," said Normand. "So most of those menial activities that violate parish ordinances or misdemeanor cases here, they don't stay in jail. They role in and roll out."
Normand says his deputies are often left dealing with repeat offenders. A solution, however, may come as a double-edged sword, according to Normand. Right now he says his office is able to get the cooperation of crime victims because they likely won't be deported. But if the federal government cracks down on more than just violent offenders, Normand fears victims who are in this country illegally will stop talking with police.
