WASHINGTON — An 18-year old Mexican national who admitted to killing a Montana couple and seriously injuring their 24-year old daughter last week may have entered the United States illegally years before he was given legal residency in May of 2013, sources tell The Daily Caller.
According to The Billings Gazette, Jesus Deniz admitted to fatally shooting Jason Shane, 51, and his wife Tana Shane, 47, on an Indian reservation last Wednesday in the town of Pryor, Montana. The couple and their 24-year-old daughter Jorah Shane pulled their car over to help Deniz, when it appeared he had run out of gas.
However, he shot all of them with a .22 caliber rifle, when they could not give him money he demanded from them, reports the Gazette. The FBI later interviewed the daughter, who survived the attack.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement says that Deniz, a resident of Worland, Wyom., was legally admitted to the U.S. in May 2013. A USCIS official says that as a fifteen or sixteen year old, Deniz was not given his permanent residency through the Deferred Action For Childhood Arrivals (DACA). Deniz would only be able to get such status in one of two ways.
A family member or employer, who is a citizen of the United States, must sponsor the individual who is seeking permanent residency. Another channel to gain permanent legal residency is an individual under 21 years of age comes into the United States and is declared a ward of the court by a state court. If this happens, then the person could qualify for a special visa called Special Immigrant Juvenile (SIJ) status. The court, for example, can look for a family to adopt or foster the young individual in these SIJ cases.
Sources in Washington tell TheDC that Deniz likely gained his legal permanent residency by attaining an SIJ visa in 2013. According to The Billings Gazette, Deniz was a “troubled kid” who was adopted as a child by Jesus Deniz Sr., and his wife Elsa Mendoza. However, Osvaldo Deniz, a cousin of the 18-year old Deniz, says the younger Deniz is not blood related to the family.
This is not Deniz’s first run in with the law. The Northern Wyoming Daily News reports that County Circuit Court documents show that he was arrested on a burglary charge in July. His bond was originally set at $10,000 cash on July 6. However, it was later changed to a $10,000 signature bond ten days later. He was released from jail thereafter and checking in twice a day to Sheriff Steve Rakness until the double murder happened last week.
Questions about the special immigrant visas surfaced in New York City in May. NBC’s New York affiliate reported that the special immigration status intended to protect abused child victims of sex trafficking was being exploited by “hundreds of young men from the same part of India,” who told the courts identical sob stories to get special green cards.
NBC notes, that the William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Act, a federal law, was put into effect in 1990 and later reauthorized in 2008. It allows a judge to approve the guardianship of an individual who is under 21. This young person may be undocumented, single, abandoned or abused by one parent and as a result of the hardship circumstances, the judge can rule that the individual would be better off living in the United States.
While advocates of the law call it “great” and a “big secret,” others told NBC, “It’s a S-C-A-M – scam! Big scam!”
NBC discovered it was difficult for the courts to investigate and know for sure if claims of parental abuse were true or if the biological parents had actually given permission to give up guardianship to the courts in the United States, as “judges seemed frustrated trying to get straight answers from the young men about their ages, dates of birth, when they arrived and how they were abused.”
The FBI has released very little information about Deniz’s background and it is unclear if he has an attorney yet. However, according to the Associated Press, Park County court officials say a hearing has not been scheduled for Deniz