Immigration agency frees veteran drug informant

An immigrant from El Salvador, who for 13 years had worked as a drug informant under the watch of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, walked out of detention Wednesday, six weeks after immigration officials arrested him so they could deport him.

ICE dropped its deportation charges against Ernesto Gamboa, saying it was not in the government's best interest to pursue them now, although it reserved the right to refile them.

An immigration judge also dismissed the agency's case against Gamboa.

"I'm so grateful for the way this thing has turned," Gamboa said as he drove away from the Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma with his brother. "I know that this is only the beginning of the battle. But at least for now I'm out."

He said he planned to have a cold beer and a meal of fish and chips.

Jorge Barón, Gamboa's attorney and the executive director of the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project, said the challenge now is to gain permanent legal status for Gamboa.

Because he was an informant, ICE had granted Gamboa "significant public parole" so he could return home to visit family, then lawfully re-enter the country to work on drug investigations. He lived in South King County.

"We know there are still some questions to be resolved about what Mr. Gamboa's long-term status will be," Barón said. "We appreciate that the government has recognized that it's not in anybody's best interest to have him detained while those are resolved."

Gamboa originally came to the U.S. on a visitor's visa in 1992. After the visa expired, he remained in the country illegally. In 1995, he was busted for possessing half an ounce of cocaine and eventually jailed after failing to appear for a scheduled hearing on the cocaine charge.

After serving his time, Gamboa said he went to Seattle police and offered to become an informant

Since 1996, Gamboa had worked under ICE's watch as a confidential informant for local, state and federal law enforcement on major national and international drug investigations. Those resulted in more than 90 federal convictions, according to some law-enforcement officials.

All along, he'd hoped — and said he'd been led to believe — that such work might eventually earn him an "S" visa. That's a kind of legal status the federal government extends to illegal immigrants who assist law enforcement in investigating and prosecuting crimes.

Instead, ICE officers arrested him on July 7, days after ICE and the Drug Enforcement Administration wrapped up a major drug investigation in which Gamboa was a key informant.

In recent weeks, Sen. Maria Cantwell has come to his defense, urging law-enforcement officials to help him remain in the country legally. Several retired law-enforcement officials who worked with him over the years also rallied to his defense.

ICE has never publicly discussed the veteran informant's work.

Even in documents it filed with the immigration court this week, in which it made the legal argument that Gamboa is deportable because he lacks valid immigration documents, it never addressed the fairness of his case.

Lornet Turnbull: 206-464-2420 or lturnbull@seattletimes.com