Salvadoran woman wanted for gang slayings deported

DALLAS (AP) - Federal authorities in Dallas have deported 25-year-old woman to her native El Salvador, where faces charges alleging that she participated in gang-related slayings there, federal officials said.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials flew Margarita Del Carmen Orellana Rivas to El Salvador this week. She was wanted there on suspicion of aggravated murder charges and had warrants accusing her of solicitation or conspiracy in other slayings, according to an ICE statement.

Agency officials described Orellana Rivas as an associate of the violent Salvadoran street gang MS-13.

"By removing criminal aliens to their countries of origin, ICE also removes the threat they pose to public safety in local U.S. Communities," said Simona L. Flores, field office director of the ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations in Dallas.

"At the same time, these removals ensure that aliens who commit crimes abroad do not use the United States as a safe haven from justice in their home countries," Flores said.

Orellana Rivas was detained shortly after entering Texas on Aug. 15 at Hidalgo from Mexico, where U.S. Border Patrol agents determined she was a gang member with an outstanding warrant.

She helped MS-13 members with the deaths of at least three people, including a woman who was lured with her baby to a meeting, then was beaten and strangled to death after serving as a witness in a case against fellow gang members, according to the ICE statement. Her baby was not harmed, the ICE statement said.

On Oct. 21, a federal immigration judge in Dallas ordered Rivas' deportation, and Orellana Rivas waived her right to appeal the decision.