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By Bob Dyer
Beacon Journal columnist
Published on Thursday, May 08, 2008
If you're going to crash into people and kill them, you want to be an illegal immigrant.
Why? Because Ohio's driving laws have more holes than this country's borders.
One of the beneficiaries is Juan Usralios, an illegal immigrant from Guatemala who is serving less time than you or I would for exactly the same offense.
Last June, on a sunny weekday afternoon, Usralios was driving his 16-year-old car on U.S. 250, just south of the Stark County line, when he went left of center and ran into a dump truck. The truck then smashed into the car behind Usralios, pushing it into a field and falling on top of it.
The man in that car — John Barr, returning to his home in Dover from his job at Morton Salt in Rittman — was killed.
Usralios initially was charged with involuntary manslaughter, a felony. But then prosecutors discovered there is no provision in the Ohio Revised Code to charge him with a felony because he wasn't driving with a suspended license. You can't suspend something that someone never had.
Illegal immigrants tend to ignore such niceties as driver's licenses. So Usralios could only be charged with vehicular homicide, a misdemeanor. He was given the maximum sentence for that offense, six months, as well as the max for having no license, six more.
Unfortunately, this case is not an aberration. In the 11 months since that crash, two other fatal accidents have taken place in that same general area — both involving illegals, both from Guatemala, both without licenses and both charged with misdemeanors.
A felony conviction not only makes a difference in jail time; it also draws far more attention from Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which must prioritize deportation cases.
Although we tend to think of illegal immigration as a problem in places like Arizona and Texas, we're feeling the effects here, too. Keith Thornton of the Summit County Sheriff's Office says the number of foreign nationals booked into the local jail has doubled in just two years. At the current pace, 104 of them will turn up this year.
To make this particular case even more painful, Usralios had already been convicted of drunken driving after smashing into a tree in 2006. He was scheduled for a deportation hearing but didn't show up. Apparently, nobody ever went looking for him because he continued to live at the same address.
(And we spend our time wanding little old ladies in wheelchairs at the airport?)
Meanwhile, the victim's small family has been ripped to pieces. Barr's daughter, who just turned 4, will have virtually no memory of her father.
''He was a great guy,'' says his widow, Kelly C. Barr. ''He was the most responsible, law-abiding citizen I've ever met. He always did the right thing and always followed every moral rule, every law there was to follow.''
He preached the value of defensive driving, and always wore his seat belt. Although those things generally pay off, they don't do much good when a 37,000-pound truck lands on top of your 1,500-pound car.
The victim's cousin, Kelly S. Barr, works for the East Akron Neighborhood Development Corp. She has helped Kelly C. raise a ruckus.
They got the attention of Rep. Allan Sayre, D-Dover, who has introduced House Bill 512, which would close the loophole. His six co-sponsors include Green Democrat Stephen Dyer (no relation to your favorite columnist).
No reason on Earth the bill shouldn't pass. If felonies are justified for the rest of us, they're certainly justified for people who aren't even supposed to be here.
Bob Dyer can be reached at 330-996-3580 or bdyer@thebeaconjournal.com.
If you're going to crash into people and kill them, you want to be an illegal immigrant.
Get the full article here.
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