Authorities have revealed that a drunk driver in New York who caused an accident that seriously injured two people on Christmas Eve is an illegal alien who had been previously deported.
Police charged Efrain Lopez-Contreras, 29, for driving drunk near Clarkson, New York on Christmas Eve. Lopez-Contreras was arrested after causing an accident that injured a local pastor and his daughter.
Injured was Tony A. Bartolucci and his daughter, Gianna. Both were found unconscious when rescue workers pulled them from their car. They are now listed in stable condition.
After the crash, Lopez-Contreras reportedly tried to flee the scene of the accident.
Authorities later reported that Lopez-Contreras had been previously deported at least once for breaking immigration laws and entering the U.S. illegally.
The legal status of the drunk driver has caused some to question the state and the federal government’s failure to enforce immigration laws.
Gates Town Supervisor and Congressional candidate Mark Assini expressed his anger at the situation and noted that the Lopez-Contreras arrest isn’t an isolated incident and that there have been many similar cases of illegals arrested for crimes.
“There’s no doubt that, right now we have porous borders,” Assini told WHAM TV. “Our federal government is inept in protecting us from people invading our country.
“Until those borders are protected, these types of tragedies are going to continue to occur and they need to stop. We have to identify how this is happening. We can’t continue to allow dangerous criminals to continue to come back into the United States,” Assini concluded.
Assini wants to know where this illegal was living, who allowed him to pay rent, and where he was working.
Lopez-Contreras was sent to Monroe County Jail in lieu of $100,000 cash bail or $200,000 bond.
Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston or email the author at igcolonel@hotmail.com
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