SIOUX FALLS, S.D.: Alexander Salgado shouldn’t have killed 16-year-old Jasmine Guevara.
He shouldn’t have even been in the country, according to South Dakota’s top prosecutor, the Argus Leader reported.
Attorney General Marty Jackley’s views on immigration were significantly shaped by the 2009 case, in which the immigrant living in the U.S. illegally pleaded guilty to second-degree murder. Jackley has generally supported President Donald Trump’s tougher stance on immigration, and that support stems in large part from the Salgado case, one of the state’s most brutal murders in recent memory.
Salgado admitted to helping his then girlfriend Maricela Diaz slit Guevara’s throat and leave the teen to burn alive in the trunk of a car in a Hansen County field. He is currently serving life in prison without parole.
A native of Guerrero, Mexico, Salgado had ties to Mexican drug cartels, and before his arrest in South Dakota, was suspected in a series of crimes in Fort Wayne, Indiana.
“He was being held in a holding facility in Indiana and they let him go,” Jackley said. “There was a little girl here in South Dakota that was harmed, and that could have been prevented on the federal side had they done their jobs.”
To Jackley, the case underscores the need for federal immigration reform. A more comprehensive approach to immigration, he said, might have prevented Salgado from coming to South Dakota and killing Guevara.
“There’s always been a recognition of the need for a proper vetting procedure that will not only make America safe, but would also be a supplement to our workforce,” Jackley said. “When it’s not done, we are left with situations like the Salgado case.”
The following year, Jackley backed Arizona after it was sued by the federal government for a bill its governor signed giving police the power to question anyone who they had reasonable suspicion of being an illegal immigrant. And in 2014, he was among the attorneys general and governors who sued the federal government over former President Obama’s order offering temporary legal status to millions of immigrants living in the U.S. illegally.
His frustration is amplified by another case in which he was unable to protect victims and witnesses from deportation after they testified in a human trafficking case.
In his previous role as U.S. Attorney, he prosecuted Robert John Farrell and his wife, Angelita Magat Farrell, who were convicted by a federal jury in November 2007 after hearing from four victims who had been treated as modern-day slaves by the couple. The Farrells first committed visa fraud to bring Philippine workers into the United States, then chained them to the cleaning and front desk duties at the hotel they owned in Oacoma.
Jackley’s office tried to secure visas for cooperating witnesses and victims, but the attempts were unsuccessful. The workers fell into the hands of the federal Immigration Custom and Enforcement. It’s unclear whether the victims returned to the Philippines. -AP
