The man suspected of drunken driving and killing a Catholic nun in Prince William County this weekend is an illegal immigrant who was awaiting deportation and who federal immigration authorities had released pending further proceedings, police said Monday.
The man, Carlos Montano, a county resident, had been arrested by police twice before on drunk-driving charges, and on at least one of those occasions county police reported him to federal authorities.
"We have determined that he is in the country illegally. He has been arrested by Prince William County Police in the past," said Officer Jonathan Perok, a police spokesman, who said U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement was notified at the time of one of those arrests.
Officer Perock said Montano was in deportation proceedings at the time of this weekend's killing, but was out on his own recognizance.
A call to ICE was not immediately returned, but the incident raises questions about the agency's policy of only detaining some illegal immigrants awaiting deportation, while releasing others.
The latest ICE statistics show the agency is actually detaining fewer people now on an average daily basis than they did in 2009.
The Sunday morning crash killed Sister Denise Mosier and injured two other nuns as they were driving to a retreat at the Benedictine Monastery in Bristow, Va. The two injured nuns were in critical but stable condition, according to St. Gertrude High School in Richmond, run by the Benedictine Sisters of Virginia.
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