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Immigration arrests interrupting some county criminal cases, Indiana lawyers say

October 18, 2025 by Chicago Tribune

For months, immigration enforcement agents have sporadically arrested some Lake County and Porter County defendants without U.S. citizenship in the middle of their criminal cases, Indiana lawyers say.

That’s added an extra layer of uncertainty — sometimes leaving both their families and attorneys scrambling to find them.

When Horacio Alarcon-Roldan, 32, of Diamond, Illinois, showed up for a routine court hearing for stealing railroad ties in Porter County on Aug. 1, he was arrested by U.S. Homeland Security, federal filings show.

U.S. Homeland Security Investigations Special Agent Jason Hines wrote that the Northern Indiana Commuter Transportation District Transit Police — i.e., South Shore Line — notified them.

Defense lawyer Steve Mullins argued Alarcon-Roldan was a middleman in the scheme.

When Alarcon-Roldan left Porter County court that day, Mullins had more clients to go in the court call. By the time he was finished, he was told ICE had arrested his client. Initially, it was hard to find information on where he was taken.

“We weren’t getting any answers,” the lawyer said.

For Alarcon-Roldan’s loved ones, it was “terrible,” he said.

Mullins later learned he was at the Porter County Jail. His client has a new court date in December. Effectively, the county case is on hold until the federal immigration case is finished. Then, it depends on what Porter County prosecutors want to do, he said.

Alarcon-Roldan is charged with reentry of a removed alien, a federal felony, with a trial slated in March. A different client was arrested while leaving Lake County misdemeanor court. Mullins, a lawyer since 1981, said it’s the first time he’s seen clients arrested by immigration in the middle of a court case.

“From our standpoint, our job for our (undocumented) clients, we have to look ahead,” he said. Now, some are getting “snatched before we even know what is going on.”

There appears to be “no rhyme or reason” for who gets detained, he said.

“Nobody is going to advise us if our client is high on the priority list,” he said. “We’re not in a position to ask that. We are caught in no-man’s land.”

Mullins said he had “no warning” that Alarcon-Roldan was about to be taken into custody that day in Porter County. His client was out on bond and attending a routine court hearing.

“If we feel there’s an immigration problem, we certainly have to put them on notice because of the current political climate. You’re at risk,” Mullins said, adding he knew about Alarcon-Roldan’s immigration status and advised him accordingly but also told him, “You need to show up.”

Porter County Prosecutor Gary Germann said Alarcon-Roldan’s case is the only one he knows of in Porter County but there might be others. He was handling a routine court call in Porter Superior Court Judge Michael Fish’s courtroom the day Alarcon-Roldan was taken into custody.

So far, Germann said, the uptick in increased immigration enforcement has not impacted people showing up for court, whether they were witnesses or defendants.

As far as Alarcon-Roldan’s felony theft cases, Germann is waiting on the resolution of the federal immigration case before he decides how to proceed with the state case.

“We’ll resolve the case one way or another,” Germann said, adding he hasn’t decided whether to dismiss the case against Alarcon-Roldan if he’s deported, since it’s a felony charge involving thousands of dollars in theft.

A plea agreement, Germann said, would at least get a conviction on his record in state court.

“This is new to us, too,” he said.

U.S. Homeland Security did not respond to a request for comment. The U.S. Attorney’s office in Hammond declined comment, citing the government shutdown.

“During the current lapse in appropriations, DOJ operations are directed toward national security, violations of federal law, and essential public safety functions. Inquiries outside of these functions will be considered when the lapse in appropriations ends,” spokeswoman Morgan Swistek said in an email.

Lake County Prosecutor Bernie Carter didn’t respond to a request for an interview.

“The Lake County Prosecutor’s Office is not notified in advance,” spokeswoman Myrna Maldonado said in an email Friday. “It has been our experience that ICE is not involved until the defendant has served his/her sentence.”

Defense lawyer John Cantrell said he’s had five clients recently taken by immigration authorities.

Lake County prosecutors charged Heriberto Caceres and Deiby Caceres-Meija, a male relative, in August 2024 with beating a bloodied man in their Crown Point apartment, records allege.

Caceres was angry that the apartment was messy. When he moved to punch a woman, the victim interceded. Caceres and Caceres-Meija “jumped” him, before the latter man choked the victim for a few minutes as two children were nearby. In the melee, Caceres-Meija slapped the older child, who tried to intervene, an affidavit showed.

When their domestic battery case was dismissed in July, immigration agents arrested them shortly afterward, the lawyer said. When asked, Cantrell said it didn’t matter whether their criminal case made them unsympathetic.

“Everyone is presumed innocent” with a right to “due process,” he said. Without a conviction, legally, “they didn’t do anything wrong.”

Another client, Israel Ticante Cruz, 19, was charged in June after leading East Chicago cops on a chase in April with two children in the car. After immigration authorities took him into custody, Cantrell said he still doesn’t know where he is.

Generally, I don’t know until the “family contacts me,” he said.

Non-citizens charged with violent crimes have long faced deportation if convicted — a practice going back several U.S. administrations — particularly as the U.S. Congress expanded the list of deportable crimes in the mid-1990s.

Before this year, undocumented defendants would only be arrested after they were convicted, he said. A lawyer for over two decades, he said he’d also never seen a client taken mid-case.

An immigration filing for Caceres, Caceres-Meija or Cruz could not be immediately found in federal filings, or in ICE’s online locator.

The jail notifies immigration for undocumented inmates, Lake County Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman Pam Jones said in an email.

“There is a report issued for immigration officials on a regular basis listing Lake County Jail inmates who are in the United States illegally,” she said. “These inmates are held at our jail until they complete their legal obligation to the State of Indiana and to Lake County. At that time, ICE will either pick up the inmates or they would be released.”

“We have always reported to ICE regarding inmates who are in the United States illegally,” she said. “We are confident that if immigration officials were conducting an enforcement or arrests in Lake County, we would be notified about it as a matter of public safety and for the safety of our police officers.”

In another domestic battery case, a Lake County prosecutor opted to dismiss it, because the defendant was referred to immigration not long after he was jailed.

Herlin Y. Guerrero-Zelaya, 53, was arrested May 17 at his Gary home after he allegedly hit a woman, then grabbed her arm and took the cellphone when she called 911. Guerrero told responding Gary officers it was a “misunderstanding” and he didn’t need “policia,” the affidavit showed.

After he was booked, the Lake County Jail contacted U.S. Homeland Security, federal filings show.

By May 22, he was facing a deportation case in federal court. After Lake County released him on his own recognizance on May 23, he was arrested on the federal immigration charge a few days later.

He pleaded guilty to reentry of a removed alien and got five months in August. The Lake County domestic case was dismissed in September. Deputy Prosecutor Jacquelyn Altpeter wrote it was due to his immigration case.

In federal court, some prosecutors are asking to add a one-year term of supervised release, akin to probation, when the sentence is over for defendants who are deported again.

One wrote it was a “deterrent” so they don’t come back. Defendants are typically deported shortly after they finish their sentences, making the request appear to be meaningless.

In reality, if they return to the U.S. within that year and are caught again, they face new charges, plus potentially several more months in jail for violating the old case.

A 45-year-old construction worker — who the Post-Tribune is not naming — was arrested in March after showing up to a traffic stop in Gary near Ridge Road and Chase Street to help his son, who was pulled over in a suspected stolen car.

Hines wrote that the Lake County Sheriff’s Department “contacted” him after the father gave deputies a Mexican identification card during an “auto theft investigation,” according to filings. When the Homeland Security agent ran his name, it showed he had been previously deported twice to Mexico.

“During traffic stops, the only way (the sheriff’s department) would find out immigration status of an individual is if that person is being arrested,” Jones said. “We do not ask for immigration status during a traffic stop unless the person has committed a crime. When the person is arrested, they are taken to the jail and their immigration status is determined at the jail.”

The father pleaded guilty to reentry of a removed alien in Hammond. A judge sentenced him to six months in prison, followed by one year on supervised release.

Previously, the man was arrested in a 2007 drug trafficking case in Dallas. He was deported shortly afterward. The drug case is still open. Since then, his other family was granted asylum.

“My family is here,” he said in court in Hammond. “My oldest son was kidnapped (in Mexico).”

“It’s unfortunate,” defense lawyer Russell Brown said afterward. “He does have a prior arrest, (but he was) working all his life.”

He spent seven months in jail after trying to help his son.

“For what?” the lawyer said.

mcolias@post-trib.com

alavalley@chicagotribune.com

Filed Under: Cubs

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