Critics say illegal immigrant charged in fatal Semmes wreck should have been deported

MOBILE, Ala. (WALA) - Antonio Antonio Rodas had been on the radar of immigration authorities for nearly 5½ years when, according to police, he plowed into a car turning out of the Semmes Walmart parking lot on Moffett Road last month.

Not only had Rodas entered the United States illegally, according to Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials, but the agency confirmed it was aware of a previous arrest on a charge of driving under the influence of alcohol n 2021. According to testimony at a hearing this week, Rodas drove his car into a utility pole.

But ICE did not take Rodas into custody at that time. A spokeswoman cited a policy directive issued by Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas shortly after President Joe Biden took office. It lays out when a “threat to public safety” might trigger deportation but does not specifically mention DUIs.

“Most people would consider that kind of a DUI to be something serious that’s a threat to public safety, but under the Biden-Mayorkas priorities, he would not have been somebody that ICE would have been allowed to go after at that point in time,” said Jessica Vaughan, director of policy studies at the Center for Immigration Studies.

Rodas, 29, now faces a murder charge. Prosecutors allege that he was driving 88 mph in the wrong direction of Moffett Road on April 28 and collided with a car driven by 19-year-old Adam Luker, who died about a week after the wreck.

Luker’s family wants to know why Rodas was in Mobile County at all. Will Phillips, an attorney who represents the family, said the federal government could have deported Rodas.

“If that had been the case, then this would have never happened,” he said. “You know, the federal government has access to all of the, you know, information about arrests and that kind of thing.”

ICE spokeswoman Sarah Loicano told FOX10 News that the U.S. Border Patrol arrested Rodas near Hidalgo, Texas, in December 2018 and released him the following week with a notice to appear in immigration court. The status of those proceedings is unclear.

Loicano told FOX10 News that the COVID-19 pandemic significantly reduced the number of illegal immigrants that ICE was able to deport and that detention space was reduced, as well. And, she noted, the Southwest border has experienced a sharp increase in the number of people crossing illegally.

As a result, Loicano told FOX10 News, Enforcement and Removal Operations temporarily redirected resources away from the interior of the United States to support Customs and Border Protection.

Vaughan, whose think tank favors limits on immigration and more aggressive border protection, said Rodas should have been returned home within a matter of days.

“That’s the first problem, is he crossed illegally, and he was allowed to stay here,” she said.

Vaughan said immigration courts are severely backed up. Immigration hearing dates often are years in the future, and she said many illegal immigrants never show up for them.

The U.S. House of Representatives passed legislation in February that would explicitly make misdemeanor DUI a deportable offense. But it hasn’t come up for a vote in the Senate. The Rodas case has become a political issue. The Republican National Committee on Thursday launched an attack on “Biden’s border policies.” It lists this wreck along several other immigration-related incidents.

Beyond Rodas’ immigration status, there are still unanswered questions about why there was apparently no response from authorities to his alleged failure to follow a judge’s orders in his first DUI case. Court records show he pleaded guilty in 2022. A judge sentenced him to 180 days in jail, followed by supervision by Metro Mobile Court Referral. That’s an organization that has a contract with the state to provide services for state and municipal courts.

According to testimony at a hearing on Wednesday, Rodas stopped showing up for court-ordered meetings with his court referral officer after eight months. Court records show he also did not pay his fine, did not attend DUI school and did not install an interlock device on his car.

Yet, Mobile County District Attorney Keith Blackwood said no one ever asked his office to revoke Rodas’s probation. Metro Mobile Court Referral’s director was not available Thursday.

“Usually, the agencies that supervise that type of probation will make efforts to contact the defendant, which was done,” Blackwood said. “And then at some point, there would be a filing for revocation of probation. I don’t know why that wasn’t done, but we’re gonna look into that.”

As to the defendant’s immigration status, Blackwood declined to speculate about whether Luker’s death could have been prevented.

“I don’t want to sit here and play Monday morning quarterback, especially in such a tragic situation like this,” he said.

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