More details are coming to light about the secret life of an Alto City Councilman as federal immigration officials work through deportation proceedings for Able Ramirez
US Immigration and Customs Enforcement records show his name is actually Ableardo Garcia-Ramirez and this will mark the second time he’s been deported back to Mexico. The first time was in 1996, just before he moved to Alto.
Garcia-Ramirez first made news here back in April when he was appointed to fill a vacant seat on the Town Council. There was nothing at the time to suggest he was anything other than he claimed. He worked full time at Mt. Vernon Mills and had built a successful business “Party Time Tables and Chairs for Rent” on the Gainesville Highway.
On June 8, he was arrested and charged with 2 counts of Battery/Family Violence and booked into the Habersham County Detention Center. It was there where the truth about his past began to emerge and the feds became interested. ICE Spokesman Vincent Picard tells Now Habersham that Garcia-Ramirez had a prior criminal record, “(He’s) been convicted twice for driving under the influence in Pennsylvania and Georgia.”
It was his prior criminal history that led to him being grabbed up so quickly after his fingerprints made it into the system, “Mr. Garcia-Ramirez… meets ICE priorities for enforcement due to his criminal history,” says Picard.
He’s talking specifically about ICE Priority 2 (misdemeanants and new immigration violators) which ranks just behind terrorists when it comes to the mission of the agency.
The “priorities,” released back in November, say agents should be more interested in detaining and deporting “aliens convicted of a significant misdemeanor” and “aliens apprehended anywhere in the United States after unlawfully entering or re-entering the United States” instead of grabbing up every illegal immigrant.
Garcia-Ramirez, with the DUI convictions, domestic violence cases and his prior deportation, ticks all those boxes.
Picard says despite what we were told by local authorities, Garcia-Ramirez is still in the US. He is being held at the Irwin County Detention Center in Ocilla, Georgia pending his return to Mexico.
