Husband of 'bravest woman in Mexico' jailed

Six years ago, Marisol Valles Garcia stood up to drug cartels as a 20-year-old police chief in one of Mexico’s most dangerous border towns before death threats forced her and her family to seek asylum in the United States.

Now, Valles’ husband, Ernesto Daniel Rubio-Cervantes, is in an El Paso County jail accused of drug trafficking, money laundering and smuggling undocumented immigrants into the country.

Valles made international headlines for being the only person willing to take over the police department of Práxedis G. Guerrero in 2010, more than a year after her predecessor was kidnapped and his severed head left in front of the police station. She was lauded as “the bravest woman in Mexico." Newsweek magazine included her in its list of 150 Women who Shake the World. And a play about her life was staged in New York City.

Valles fled to the United States after about four months on the job. She sought asylum for her husband, her parents and her infant child, saying she feared for her life.

Her husband’s name has never been reported publicly, but a federal document obtained by the El Paso Times shows Valles is married to Rubio-Cervantes, who has been in the El Paso County Jail for nearly four months after he was allegedly caught trying to smuggle illegal immigrants into the country.

Drug charges

During a March 16 court hearing, prosecutors mentioned that a possible plea agreement on the charges of transporting undocumented immigrants could be reached in the next two weeks. But on March 22, Rubio-Cervantes was indicted by a grand jury on additional charges that include conspiracy to import marijuana, conspiracy to possess marijuana with the intent to distribute and conspiracy to launder monetary instruments.

Documents detailing the newest allegations have been sealed by a federal court but, according to a redacted indictment, Rubio-Cervantes, 24, allegedly imported and distributed 100 kilograms or more of marijuana in 2016. In addition, Rubio-Cervantes is accused of moving an undisclosed amount of money from Oklahoma and Texas into Mexico between April 8 and April 14, 2016.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Andres Ortega, who is prosecuting the case against Rubio-Cervantes, couldn't be reached for comment. Rubio-Cervantes' court-appointed criminal defense lawyer, Sergio Garcia, also could not be reached for comment.

Asylum cases

Immigration attorney Carlos Spector, who represents Marisol Valles Garcia in her asylum case, said the charges against her husband do not affect his client.

Spector said Valles' case is based on the events that happened in Mexico, which forced her and her family to flee to the United States.

“Generally, even if he was convicted, it should not affect her case. It’s more of a perception,” he said. Spector said it does not look good when someone who is in the country under asylum is accused of a crime.

Spector declined to say if Rubio-Cervantes’ arrest will affect his asylum case, referring questions to Garcia, his court-appointed criminal defense lawyer. Garcia did not respond to a request for comment. Spector represents Rubio-Cervantes in the asylum case, according to an employee who answered the phone at his law office.

El Paso immigration attorney Kathleen Campbell Walker, who is not involved with Rubio-Cervantes' case, said that he runs the risk of not receiving permanent residency based on asylum if he is convicted of a serious crime. Smuggling undocumented immigrants is an aggravated felony, she said.

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“There is a possibility of not qualifying for asylum when you have a conviction, typically for something deemed to be a serious crime, under immigration law,”  Campbell Walker said.  She said added, "that doesn’t mean though that other grounds could not be available to him."

According to the U.S. Department of Justice’s asylum statistics, the department received 42,958 asylum requests in 2011, with about 17 percent coming from Mexico. Of the 7,454 asylum requests received from Mexican nationals in 2011, only 92, or 1.2 percent, were granted that year.

The percentage of asylum cases granted to Mexican nationals slightly increased in 2015 when 203 people received asylum, or 2.3 percent of the 8,926 petitions, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.  The number of Mexican nationals requesting asylum in 2015 also increased by about 2.2 percent compared to 2011.

Stephen Yale-Loehr, a professor of immigration law practice at Cornell University, said asylum cases in the United States often take a long time to get resolved because of a backlog in federal courts.

“We have over 540,000 asylum cases pending nationwide and we only have less than 300 immigration judges,” he said.

Yale-Loehr said each asylum case "has to be decided on its own facts and applying the law to those facts."

“To obtain asylum in the United States, a person must demonstrate a well-founded fear of persecution based on one of five characteristics: because of your race, your religion, your nationality, your political opinion, or because you are a member of a particular social group like gays or lesbians," Yale-Loehr said.  "The persecution cannot be private like your neighbor beating you up. It has to be something that is done to you by either the government or a group that the government cannot or will not control."

Arrest near Tornillo

Records for the original immigrant smuggling charge show that Rubio-Cervantes was arrested on Dec. 6, 2016, near an abandoned home in a pecan orchard near Tornillo, Texas, which is just 20 miles from the violence-stricken Mexican town he and his family fled.

Earlier that day, Border Patrol agents had arrested three undocumented immigrants. They used a cell phone from the group to interact with their alleged smuggler and to signal they were ready to be transported, federal documents show.

Rubio-Cervantes arrived at the abandoned home and told a pair of agents who were posing as undocumented immigrants that he was there to pick them up, “to hurry and to get into the vehicle,” court records state.

Rubio-Cervantes attempted to flee when the agents identified themselves and ordered him to turn off his vehicle, but traffic prevented him from leaving, the criminal complaint filed in federal court states.

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He told agents he was in the United States “under credible fear asylum.”

Rubio-Cervantes pleaded not guilty on Jan. 12 to charges of conspiracy to transport aliens and transporting aliens before U.S. District Judge Kathleen Cardone of the Western District of Texas. He is being held without bond at the El Paso County Jail Annex.

Aileen B. Flores may be reached at 546-6362. aflores@elpasotimes.com. @AileenBFlores on Twitter.