A 24-year-old Nipomo man arrested for allegedly stabbing his girlfriend to death had been deported from the United States nine months before the murder, according to federal immigration officials.
SLO County Sheriff’s Office deputies took Julio Caesar Alonso into custody May 31 after they discovered the body of Alonso’s girlfriend, identified as 24-year-old Paulina Ramirez-Diaz in a home on the 600 block of Pomeroy Avenue in Nipomo. According to sheriff’s officials, Ramirez-Diaz was found inside the home with a stab wound to her neck.
In a statement to the Sun, a spokesperson for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) said that the agency’s agents first encountered Alonso in December 2015 while he was serving time in an unspecified California prison. ICE initiated deportation proceedings against Alonso, and an immigration judge ordered that he be returned to Mexico on Aug. 16, 2016.
“He was deported to Mexico that same day,” ICE officials said in a written statement on Alonso’s arrest.
According to California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) Press Secretary Vicky Waters, Alonso was transferred to the CDCR in November 2014 from Santa Barbara County with a four year and four month sentence for evading or attempting to evade a peace officer while driving recklessly, possession of a controlled substance, burglary, vandalism, and driving under the influence. He was paroled in December 2015 and discharged from parole in 2016.
In an interview with the Desert Sun newspaper in Palm Springs shortly after his 2016 deportation, Alonso indicated that he first came to the United States when he was 7 years old. He also said that he had a girlfriend and young son who lived in Santa Maria, but did not specify who they were. The article ends with Alonso in Mexico, and notes that his only option for re-entry into the U.S. would be to cross the border illegally.
“I’m going to try to make a life here, get a job and an apartment, and have my son be able to visit,” Alonso told the Desert Sun.
ICE did not have any information on when he came back into the country.
With Alonso now sitting in SLO County Jail, ICE said it issued an immigration detainer against him.
“The detainer requests that local authorities notify ICE prior to his release to enable the agency to take custody to pursue further administrative immigration enforcement action,” the ICE statement read.
But not all of the country’s county jails are willing to honor those detainers. Regular reports by the agency contain a running list of law enforcement agencies that, to varying degrees, have enacted or voiced policies that ICE deems are “uncooperative” with the agency’s mission.
The SLO County Jail is included on ICE’s list. According to the agency’s most recent report, the SLO County Sheriff’s Office will not hold an inmate with an ICE detainer past his or her release date. The Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office is also on the list. The report states that the department requires a judicial determination of probable cause or a warrant before it will honor an immigration detainer.
“When law enforcement agencies fail to honor immigration detainers and release serious criminal offenders,” A statement on the agency’s website stated, “it undermines ICE’s ability to protect public safety and carry out its mission.”
As of June 6, Alonso remained in SLO County Jail, but had not been formally charged by the SLO County District Attorney’s Office. He has yet to be arraigned in SLO County Superior Court.
