Republished with permission from the Gillette News Record
Between May 2025 and the start of June this year, Campbell County law enforcement agencies transferred 87 people to Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody, mostly for non-violent traffic-related offenses such as speeding. Those detainments sometimes interfere with ongoing investigation for violent crimes, such as sexual assault or domestic battery, according to court and law enforcement records obtained by the News Record.
Of the 87 inmates transferred to ICE custody, about half of them did not have charges brought to District Court for prosecution, according to court records.
It is unclear what prompted many of those inmates’ transfers to ICE custody.
Records from Wyoming Highway Patrol show that in one case, an ICE detainer may have conflicted with a sexual assault investigation.
A WHP incident report dated Feb. 3, 2026, described troopers receiving a support request from the Gillette Police Department about a man with an ICE detainer, Assurim Rosas-Santaella, whom police officers were interviewing.
Since his ICE detainment, the investigation has stalled.
In response to a News Record public records request for copies of all documents related to a sexual assault case in which Rosas-Santaella was named as a suspect, Gillette Assistant City Attorney Saige N. Smith rejected the request, citing a Wyoming statute that forbids public agencies from releasing names of alleged actors or victims of a crime while an investigation is ongoing without permission from a judge.
Rosas-Santaella has had multiple run-ins with local law enforcement in the last few years, including eight traffic incidents since 2024.
Trooper Alexander Stimson wrote in the incident report that he told Rosas-Santaella he was a task force officer at the police department.
Rosas-Santaella asked Stimson — through a translating police officer — what would happen to him if he answered questions. Stimson said it would be up to him and ICE agents to determine what happens next.
After hearing this, Rosas-Santaella told officers he crossed the southern border using a coyote, or a human smuggler.
He was taken to jail, then transferred to ICE custody from county custody the next day for immigration proceedings, according to jail records.
The most recent court records show that prosecution against Rosas-Santaella was dropped in lieu of his court appearance for a driver’s license violation.
Christina Williams, an attorney with Just Criminal Law, said prosecutions of non-citizens aren’t common in Campbell County. She hasn’t had any personal experience of it, and she said there’s “no good way” of enforcing immigration violations while maintaining local investigations.
“Once they’re in custody and it’s documented that they’re not here legally, and there’s not pending charges, I would definitely say that they are being deported, which I don’t know what to think about that,” Williams said. “It’s very expensive to prosecute them.”
Williams pointed out that it’s hard enough for law enforcement to keep track of people while balancing an investigation with immigration enforcement, and it wouldn’t be surprising if immigration enforcement took priority to maintain relative simplicity.
“The policy is if you’re undocumented then you’re not supposed to be in the United States...It’s hard to make exceptions for that,” Williams said. “Like if the person is being investigated for a felony, do you leave them be? I think with the state of the agenda that this administration has, it just has to keep it simple. Exceptions would make the execution of the policy impossible.”
Williams also pointed out that previous administrations have also worked hard to deport people not authorized to be in the United States, including former President Barack Obama.
The Obama administration’s busiest year for immigration enforcement was more than twice as busy as the busiest year during Trump’s first term. Obama’s administration reported deporting about 407,000 people in 2012 while Trump’s administration reported deporting about 269,000 people in 2019.
Still, Trump is working hard to deport as many people as possible. His administration reported its busiest month ever for immigration enforcement in July, in which ICE arrested about 50,000 people in a single month across the country. Most of those arrests were for people without a criminal record.
There have been reports about his administration enforcing deportation and arrest quotas at about 3,000 people a day, though the government disputes that claim.
“The other part of it is (suspects) may be being investigated, but they’re still here illegally. Law enforcement may not come across them again,” Williams said. “The administration’s policy is that first and foremost, they’re undocumented. We need to deport them rather than have them hang around. That criminal investigation may or may not lead to a prosecution.”
In another local case, a man was charged with two counts of domestic battery in November 2025. Instead of serving a sentence, he was placed into ICE custody for immigration proceedings.
Abrham Perez Eusebio was charged with two counts of domestic battery and unlawful contact after hitting and trying to tear the clothes off his wife in front of children aged 10, nine, three and one.
Perez Eusebio and his wife were arguing over his using TikTok to talk to other women. She took his phone and hit him in the head until it started bleeding and he retaliated by hitting her.
According to the police report, Perez Eusebio was the one who dialed 911.
When police responded, they found his wife, who had a black eye and bruising around her jawline, and arrested him for two counts of domestic battery.
Perez Eusebio was released to ICE custody 16 days later, according to jail records.
Possible federal investigations
Other cases list charges that became inactive due to a failure to serve a bench warrant to the alleged offender.
Many ICE transfers with attached charges come from Wyoming Highway Patrol, the only statewide law enforcement agency with the engrossing Task Force Model 287(g) agreement with ICE, allowing troopers to enforce federal immigration laws during daily operations.
Campbell County Sheriff’s Office only has a jail enforcement model for immigration enforcement, which allows deputies to inquire about an inmate’s citizenship status only while in jail custody.
In at least three Campbell County cases, local charges are left in inactive status while immigration or federal law enforcement investigate larger crimes.
WHP assisted deputies in May this year during a traffic stop where three suspects were suspected to be involved in human trafficking, according to an affidavit.
Deputies pulled over Carlos Velazquez Gonzalez, Marvin Calel-Equila and Ovidio Sut Sut and called for Highway Patrol’s assistance near Force Road.
During the traffic stop, the three men told responding officers they were traveling from Las Vegas. When officers asked why they were in Las Vegas, they chuckled.
Stimson communicated with an ICE agent who advised that the three men appeared to be in this country illegally. Details that led to this conclusion included Velazquez-Gonzalez’s supposedly freshly issued temporary driver’s license from Illinois and new registration from Wisconsin on the 2015 Toyota Corolla they were driving in.
Velazquez-Gonzalez was arrested for a license violation before Sut Sut and Calel-Equila fled on foot. They were caught and arrested for interference.
But all three of their cases are on “inactive status,” according to court records, but can still be charged if law enforcement finds them at a later date. Sut Sut and Calel-Equila both have active bench warrants for their arrests.
Campbell County Sheriff Scott Matheny said deputies won’t pursue charges such as interference to not impede a federal investigation into bigger cases involving human trafficking.
Ordinarily, suspects held on ICE detainers are held for no longer than two days. Velazquez-Gonzalez, Calel-Equila and Sut Sut were held for more than a week before being released from jail and into ICE custody, according to jail records.
An ICE official at its Denver field office denied answering the status of inmates without providing their date of birth, which is protected information for Campbell County and district court records.
Current trials
Campbell County attorneys are prosecuting at least two cases against defendants of alleged violent crimes who are not authorized to be in the United States.
Jhosep Mejia was arrested for aggravated assault, kidnapping and battery in October last year. In June, a jury found him guilty of aggravated assault, but they found him not guilty of kidnapping. Aggravated assault is punishable by up to 10 years in prison.
Marlon Velasquez Aguirre was arrested in September last year for one count of sexual exploitation of a child, punishable by up to 12 years in jail.
Both of their cases are progressing through the local court system, and they’ve remained in the Campbell County Jail despite having ICE detainers, which normally last up to 48 hours.
Williams said she hasn’t had any non-citizen clients, but whatever happens to a defendant after being found guilty is up to the state. She added that it’s also possible prosecutors are running against enforcing the law to its fullest extent while balancing the Trump administration’s priorities to deport all illegal immigrants.
The county attorney’s office declined an interview about prosecuting cases against non-citizens with ICE detainers.
No sentencing
TheGillette News Record also reported on a November 2024 incident in which three men from outside the United States plotted to kill their roommate.
The three men, Juan Enrique-Gonzalez, Adrian Gonzalez Oviedo and Adan Oviedo-Rivera, all from Mexico, were suspected of beating up and leaving their roommate Luis Enrique Garcia-Jimenez to die out in the cold.
Sheriff’s deputies found Garcia-Jimenez shivering for warmth in the airport with visible wounds from his beating.
After the three men’s arrest, the state pursued charges of conspiracy to commit first-degree murder, kidnapping, conspiracy to commit kidnapping and aggravated assault and battery against all three men involved. If found guilty, the men, who were here illegally, were looking at decades in prison.
They were in jail for about nine months awaiting trial, but in the summer of 2025, the charges were dropped after the prosecution was unable to contact Garcia-Jimenez. ICE had placed a detainer on the three defendants shortly after they were arrested, and ICE picked them up soon after the case was dismissed.