PORT ANGELES — An Immigration and Customs Enforcement team took an immigration fugitive into custody last month from the India Oven restaurant, said an ICE spokeswoman.
Joga Singh Khaira, 58, of India had been ordered deported by an immigration judge in 2001, “and had failed to comply,” ICE spokeswoman Lorie Dankers said.
“He was living illegally in the country,” she added.
Khaira was taken to a facility at SeaTac.
The team from Seattle also checked the documentation of workers at the restaurant in downtown Port Angeles, she said.
“When we were there, we had reasonable cause to look at the documents of the individual people.
“There were five of them. All were aliens or natives of other countries.
“They were working there legally.”
Dankers said that while the ICE fugitive operations team was in Port Angeles on Aug. 24, it “did encounter another individual who is not a fugitive, and who is illegally in the country.”
She said that person, whom Dankers declined to identify, had fled the restaurant while agents were checking workers’ documents.
The person was taken into custody, and will have an opportunity to go before an immigration judge, with the judge determining whether the individual is allowed to remain in the country.
The person was charged with a violation of an immigration law, which is an administrative charge rather than a criminal charge, and so the name can’t be released under Department of Homeland Security privacy policy, she said.
