Undocumented father among those in the metro-east facing swift deportation
As Reynaldo Navarro-Chapol left his Granite City home early on May 19, he was being tracked by a Department of Homeland Security agent and several other federal officers.
After Navarro-Chapol dropped off a child at a babysitter, the federal officers stopped the vehicle he was riding in at the intersection of Maryville Road and Clark Avenue in Granite City, according to a criminal complaint charging him with illegal reentry after deportation to Mexico.
Before his arrest on the immigration charge and subsequent guilty plea, Navarro-Chapol, 35, typically worked more than 60 hours a week as a roofer or laborer and previously faced only “relatively minor traffic violations,” his attorney wrote in court papers.
“Reynaldo’s time in the United States is typical of poor immigrants trying to latch onto the American Dream,” defense attorney John D. Stobbs II of Alton wrote in a sentencing memorandum.
But because he had been previously deported, Navarro-Chapol’s life as an undocumented immigrant is coming to an end. He will be deported soon or has already been deported because federal authorities likely will “reuse” the initial deportation order from 2023 and bypass the U.S. immigration court process, according to an attorney for an immigrant rights group in Chicago.
Navarro-Chapol, along with his younger brother Luis Navarro-Chapol and at least eight others, have been charged with illegal reentry after deportation in recent months in southern Illinois, according to federal court records. The Navarro-Chapol brothers and four others have already pleaded guilty and four cases are pending.
These 10 cases followed an April news release by U.S. Attorney Steven D. Weinhoeft, who said that nine people in southern Illinois faced immigration-related charges. Since Weinhoeft’s announcement, all nine of those defendants have pleaded guilty, meaning prosecutors have landed convictions in 15 of 19 criminal cases, according to court records.
The 19 cases were lodged this year in southern Illinois as part of what Weinhoeft has described as part of the Trump administration’s priority to enforce immigration laws.
President Donald Trump vowed on the campaign trail to deport millions of migrants and “dangerous criminals.”
“This is an invasion of our country,” Trump told Time magazine last year before he was elected. “An invasion like probably no country has ever seen before.”
The total number of arrests this year in southern Illinois by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, agents has not been released. A spokesperson for the agency could not be reached for comment.
These arrests include a Staunton restaurant owner who received support from hundreds during a protest over his arrest and a Clinton County farmworker. These two men were not listed in federal criminal court records in either the Central District or Southern District of Illinois.
Fred Tsao, senior policy counsel for the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, said the number of people being deported under the second Trump administration has been far greater than what he has seen in 27 years in his position with the private, nonprofit group.
“This has gone way, way overboard,” he said.
Tsao also said he believes the level of enforcement is greater than what many people who voted for Trump would have envisioned, particularly those who thought only the “worst of the worst” would be targeted.
Tsao said people arrested in Illinois include flower vendors and restaurant workers as well as parents dropping off their children to school or spending a day with their families in parks.
Fernando Torres, who is from St. Louis and has worked as a Spanish translator in court hearings on both sides of the river for 35 years, criticized federal officials for “hunting” down immigrants.
“This is not the United States of America that I used to know,” Torres said.
Deportation process
The number of people who have been arrested in immigration cases in southern Illinois and deported this year has not been released and an ICE spokesperson could not be reached for comment.
Tsao said people like the Navarro-Chapol brothers who previously have been deported and then convicted of illegal reentry after deportation likely will be deported quickly because they won’t get a hearing in the U.S. immigration court system, which is operated by a U.S. Justice Department agency known as the Executive Office of Immigration Review.
“In those cases, what ICE can do is just pull that old deportation order off the shelf and reuse it,” Tsao said.
Instead of facing an immigration court judge, defendants likely will be given what’s known as a “reinstatement of removal” order and deported, Tsao said.
The online portal for the Executive Office of Immigration Review to check on the status of immigration court cases requires the user to enter a person’s alien registration number, or A-Number. However, this number is not listed in records open to the public.
Cases filed in immigration court are part of a civil process while the immigration charges filed in federal court are classified as criminal.
In Illinois, those being prosecuted on civil immigration cases cannot be held in a county jail because of regulations in a state law known as the TRUST Act, Tsao said. However, those who face criminal charges in federal immigration cases can be held in Illinois jails, which receive money from the federal government for holding federal detainees.
Reynaldo Navarro-Chapol is the father of two young boys and his wife was pregnant with their third child when he was sentenced in July.
In a memo about the case, Stobbs described the fate that awaited his client:
“This second deportation makes it practically impossible for Reynaldo to ever return to the United States legally. Reynaldo will have to accept the fact that he will have to live the rest of his life in Mexico with his family living close by in the United States so they can have ‘normal’ visitation.”
Immigration criminal charges filed
Court records filed on behalf of the government against the nine people cited by Weinhoeft had information about state and federal criminal charges they had faced in non-immigration cases. These cases previously had been reported in the Belleville News-Democrat.
The other 10 cases were reviewed by the BND after the U.S. Attorney’s Office provided a list of immigrants charged recently with illegal reentry after deportation. The federal court records for this group had information about criminal offenses in non-immigration cases on two of them.
Federal court records list the following information about the 10 latest cases in which each person was charged with illegal reentry after deportation:
Gumaro Perez-Elias, 32
Gumaro Perez-Elias had a non-immigration charge noted in federal court records. He was charged with domestic battery in Madison County in 2023 but the disposition of this case was not available.
He previously had been deported to Mexico on June 26, 2018, from Hidalgo, Texas. Perez-Elias, who was arrested in Woodland, California, on June 30, has a trial date of Jan. 20 on his charge of illegal reentry after deportation.
Andres Garcia-Landero, 54
Andres Garcia-Landero had a non-immigration charge noted in federal court records. He was arrested on a charge of trespassing on railroad property in East St. Louis in March but the disposition of this case was not available.
He had been deported to Mexico on Dec. 2, 2022, from Del Rio, Texas, and has a trial date of Dec. 9 on his charge of illegal reentry after deportation.
Raul Zuniga-Martinez, 47
Raul Zuniga-Martinez was deported to Mexico on Dec. 3, 2013, from Brownsville, Texas, and was found in Effingham County on April 28.
He pleaded guilty on Sept. 16 to his charge of illegal reentry after deportation and was sentenced to time served.
Nelson I. Ochoa-Posadas, 43
Nelson I. Ochoa-Posadas, who is from Honduras, was deported on June 5, 2006, and was found in Effingham County last year.
He was indicted on June 3 on a charge of illegal reentry after deportation and pleaded guilty on Aug. 12. He is scheduled to be sentenced on Dec. 9 in Benton.
Israel Hernandez-Reyes, 30
Israel Hernandez-Reyes, who is from Mexico, was indicted on June 3 on a charge of illegal reentry after deportation after he was found in Jackson County on May 21. Hernandez-Reyes was previously removed from the United States on Dec. 1, 2017, at Calexico, California, and pleaded guilty on Aug. 25 with a sentence of time served.
Hadiel Romero-Maldonado, 38
An indictment alleges Hadiel Romero-Maldonado was found in Madison County on May 14 after he had been deported on Nov. 16, 2023, from San Antonio, Texas.
An arrest warrant for a charge of illegal reentry after deportation has been issued for Romero-Maldonado, who is from Honduras.
Doroteo Quinto-Ventura, 23
Doroteo Quinto-Ventura was found in Johnson County on June 25 and pleaded guilty on Nov. 3 to illegal reentry after deportation. A sentencing hearing is scheduled for March 2.
Quinto-Ventura, who is from Mexico, was previously deported on June 1, 2022, from Nogales, Arizona.
Jose E. Peralta-Romero, 27
Jose E. Peralta-Romero, a Mexican national, was found in Madison County on June 9, 2024 after previously being deported in March 2019 from Hidalgo, Texas.
Peralta-Romero was indicted on Aug. 19 on a charge of illegal reentry after deportation and has a trial date of Jan. 20.
Luis Navarro-Chapol, 30, and his brother, Reynaldo Navarro-Chapol, 35
The Navarro-Chapol brothers, whose country of origin is Mexico, have each pleaded guilty to illegal reentry after deportation and they were represented by Alton attorney John D. Stobbs II, who said he speaks fluent Spanish and often works with Latino clients.
Court records state that when ICE was conducting surveillance of Reynaldo Navarro-Chapol, agents encountered Luis Navarro-Chapol.
Luis Navarro-Chapol, who was arrested on the same day as his brother in May after Reynaldo Navarro-Chapol had dropped off a child at a babysitter in Granite City, was given a sentence of time served after he pleaded guilty on June 23. He previously had been deported on July 27, 2016.
Reynaldo Navarro-Chapol was arrested “after briefly refusing to exit the passenger seat,” according to court records.
In an effort to seek a reduction in the potential sentence Reynaldo Navarro-Chapol faced on July 17, Stobbs asked U.S. District Judge David W. Dugan to take into consideration his client’s background.
Reynaldo Navarro-Chapol previously was deported on July 28, 2023, at Brownsville, Texas, according to court records.
Undocumented “immigrants like Reynaldo live a daily nightmare of being stopped for a minor traffic offense, arrested, jailed and incarcerated,” Stobbs wrote. “Because every second of every day their presence in the United States is a crime, illegal immigrants like Reynaldo have an anxiety that is difficult to explain.
“A sentence of around 6 months will send the message that he just has to stay gone from the United States. Reynaldo, his wife and sons will pay the price of Reynaldo’s decision to return to the United States the rest of their lives.”
In the end, Dugan ordered Reynaldo Navarro-Chapol to serve a one-year prison sentence and pay a $100 assessment fee.
