About a week ago, a 27-year-old by the name of Juan Cano was cited for open bottle by an Austin Police Department officer.

Friday, September 03, 1999

About a week ago, a 27-year-old by the name of Juan Cano was cited for open bottle by an Austin Police Department officer. On Thursday at 5 p.m., police were called to the 600 block of 9th Ave. SE, where they found Cano passed out and lying on the ground.

About a week ago, a 27-year-old by the name of Juan Cano was cited for open bottle by an Austin Police Department officer. On Thursday at 5 p.m., police were called to the 600 block of 9th Ave. SE, where they found Cano passed out and lying on the ground. He was taken to detox.

Cano is an illegal alien awaiting a deportation hearing with the state’s Immigration and Naturalization Service in Bloomington. He was in Austin on his own recognizance following another arrest here earlier this year.

To hear Mark Cangemi tell it, Cano’s situation is not an unusual one. Cangemi is the assistant district director for investigations with the INS office in Minnesota.

"We’d be hard pressed to find room in the inn for every one of them," Cangemi said.

On Sunday, the Austin Police pulled the vehicle containing Cano over on the 100 block of 11th St. SE, and cited the driver for driving under the influence. Cano was seated in the passenger seat. While in conversation with the officer, the police report said, Cano admitted he’d been deported months earlier, following his arrest in Austin on June 12, which was one day prior to the murder of Jose Luis Castillo, also an illegal alien.

In fact, Cano had not been deported, only released on his own recognizance while awaiting his deportation hearing.

"It’s not our common practice to release someone prior to a future court date," Cangemi said.

But it has become a necessary one.

The deportation hearings in Bloomington are "backed up six or seven months," Cangemi said. There is simply no place to hold most illegal aliens for such long periods after they’re taken into custody.

There have been more than 150 INS-related arrests in Minnesota in 1999. At least 10 of those arrests have come in Austin. Most illegal aliens found locally have been discovered during traffic stops by local authorities. On July 25, Austin Police pulled over a car containing two men who provided false names before admitting to being in the country illegally. The police called the INS, which placed detainers on the two men. But the Mower County jail was full and the men had to be released.

Earlier this week, Cangemi said the INS took 14 suspected illegal aliens into custody during an INS-led operation in Minneapolis. Depending on individual backgrounds, only the most serious prior offenders among those arrested are detained until their deportation hearings.