AFTER ACCIDENT, LOCAL SPOTLIGHT ON NATIONAL DEBATE
by Caroline Touey
Washington Post staff writer
A fatal accident in the Franklin Grove neighborhood of Meigs County is causing repercussions well beyond initial concerns about pedestrian safety on a busy thoroughfare, catapulting the quiet, stately bedroom community just outside the nation’s capital into the national debate on illegal immigration.
The driver of the vehicle that struck and killed five-year-old Humphrey T. Danker has been living in the country illegally for many years, according to officials close to the accident investigation. Eugene Folgar Guzman, 43, of Calvert Hills, is believed to have entered the United States on a student visa some years ago to pursue graduate studies in bioengineering. Whether he obtained his graduate degree while legally on his student visa is not clear, but sources involved in the investigation say that the visa expired at least a decade ago.
Guzman is a native of Colombia, as is his wife. They have two young daughters, both of whom were born in the United States. Mrs. Guzman and the two daughters were in the automobile when Mr. Guzman struck Humphrey Danker.
Guzman was driving on an expired driver’s license obtained when he was a graduate student.
“Mr. Guzman apparently did not seek to renew his license when it expired, presumably because he thought such an action would have exposed his by-then illegal status to authorities,” said a person with knowledge of the investigation who spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak about the case.
According to Cynthia Hardisty of the Meigs County Police Department, Guzman has no record of traffic violations or other legal infractions in the state.
Anti–illegal immigration activists are disturbed by the fact that an undocumented alien driving without a valid license killed young Humphrey Danker.
“If it were not for this illegal immigrant, a child who is now dead would be alive,” said Geoffrey Merryman, executive director of the Federation for Lawful Immigration, which advocates for tougher immigration law enforcement. “He was driving without a license. And we don’t even know everything about this Mr. Guzman yet. He studied bioengineering—then what? He’s from one of the more violent countries in South America, a center of drug trafficking. What has he been doing all these years?”
Susan Lester, spokeswoman for Americans for Secure Borders, said, “Look, let’s assume that this driver has not been up to anything nefarious. I’m happy to give him the benefit of the doubt. But that’s not the point. The point is, he’s here illegally, and he has been for many years. How has he been able to work and live here illegally for so long? Because of indefensible loopholes in our legal system.”
Under existing law, Meigs County police do not take action when they suspect or determine that an individual who is cited for a misdemeanor traffic violation may be an undocumented alien. In several adjacent jurisdictions, county and city police follow a policy of determining the immigration status of individuals who are stopped for traffic violations. Those police departments then share information about undocumented aliens with federal authorities for possible prosecution and deportation.
“Our community so far has resisted the temptation to blame all its problems on immigrants,” said Simon Lytell, director of the Immigration Rights Center. “Obviously, law offenders are held to account here. Federal immigration policy is a federal matter. Our concern is that efforts to get local police involved in immigration enforcement not only divert scarce community resources to problems that are the responsibility of the federal government, but also can be used as a screen for intolerance and bigotry, pure and simple. That’s not what our county is about.”
Last year, an undocumented immigrant with a criminal record that included a drunk driving conviction killed two middle school teachers when the car he was driving crossed the median on Interstate 595 and crashed into their car. The immigrant, Hassan Mansour, had a blood alcohol concentration of .15 percent, nearly twice the legal limit. That incident spurred debate throughout the region about the role of undocumented immigrants in deadly accidents.
Earlier this year, Delegate William Foster (5th District) introduced legislation in the Meigs County Council that would authorize, and in some cases require, county police to inquire into the immigration status of any person stopped for a traffic offense and to report any apparent violations to federal immigration authorities. Hearings have not been held on the proposal, and prior to the Franklin Grove accident, it did not attract significant attention. Nor has it been considered likely to pass, as a solid majority of the council members are considered friendly to the county’s immigrant population, which generally opposes the idea. The Humphrey Danker accident may change this calculus.
“We will be going to the council on this,” said Merryman, of the Federation for Lawful Immigration. “And if they are afraid of offending the immigrants in this community, we’ll take it to the state assembly. Enough is enough. Let’s act before another innocent child is killed.”
The parents of the child killed in the Franklin Grove accident, Thomas R. and Clarice Danker, declined to comment. Thomas R. Danker is a prominent Washington, D.C., attorney known for his advocacy before the U.S. Supreme Court. In the past, he has been counsel of record in at least two cases in which he represented the Immigration Rights Center.