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After stopping a car for speeding outside of Cody last month, the Wyoming Highway Patrol soon found that the occupants lacked a license, registration, insurance — and legal permission to be in …
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After stopping a car for speeding outside of Cody last month, the Wyoming Highway Patrol soon found that the occupants lacked a license, registration, insurance — and legal permission to be in the country.
Both the driver, 18-year-old Israel Rodriguez-ramos, and his passenger, 39-year-old Eduardo-rafael Rodriguez Diaz, were arrested on Nov. 17 on warrants from the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
The patrol had limited information about the warrants, but an agency spokesman said Rodriguez Diaz was alleged to have overstayed a visa.
“Both individuals are illegal aliens from Mexico without authorization to remain in the United States,” an ICE spokesperson wrote in a Tuesday email to the Tribune. “They will be held pending immigration proceedings.”
A trooper stopped the men’s 2012 Honda Odyssey on Wyo. Highway 120 in the early afternoon of Nov. 17. The car was about 6 miles north of Cody, and the officer reportedly clocked it going 78 miles an hour in the 70 mph zone.
Rodriguez-ramos apparently provided an address in Sturgis, Michigan, while Rodriguez Diaz was listed in court records as residing in Mexico.
Court records indicate that the Honda appeared to be registered in North Carolina. However, when the trooper examined the temporary tags, he discovered that they were fraudulent: Someone appeared to have simply printed fake information onto a standard sheet of paper, said patrol spokesman Aaron Brown.
“Basically everything about it was fake,” Brown said.
Eventually, the trooper learned of the pending warrants from ICE and arrested both men.
Rodriguez-ramos and Rodriguez Diaz were initially held in the Park County Detention Center before being transferred to ICE custody on Nov. 19. As of Wednesday, ICE records showed that Rodriguez-ramos was being held at a detention facility in Denver, while the Tribune was unable to determine the whereabouts of Rodriguez Diaz.
In a summer interview, Park County Sheriff Darrell Steward said his agency routinely cooperates with ICE — such as by looping the feds in on tips they receive about illegal aliens — but generally sees few people picked up for immigration violations.
A 48-year-old Mexican citizen who had been living in Powell on a work visa was deported in the spring after he battered his wife.
