The man accused of killing a Washington State Patrol trooper likely would have been in the custody of immigration officials at the time of the slaying if normal safeguards had been taken.

Instead, Nicolas Solorio Vasquez was free on bond Thursday night, when police say he shot Trooper James Saunders several times in the head and neck during an apparent routine traffic stop in Pasco.

Vasquez, a 28-year-old Mexican national, has been deported three times in the past three years, according to the U.S. Border Patrol. This summer, he was in jail in Pasco, facing a November trial on a cocaine-delivery charge.

He managed to post $5,000 bail and was released Aug. 9. But that shouldn't been the end of his incarceration.

Typically, immigration officials put a "hold" on a prisoner like Vasquez, who also has a criminal record, including a previous drug conviction in Franklin County. That would have required local authorities to turn him over for immigration detention.

No hold was put on Vasquez -- the result of the temporary transfer of the Border Patrol agent stationed in the Tri-Cities to Arizona, said an official with the agents' union.

"We said in a press release a week ago (objecting to the transfers) that something like this is going to happen," said Keith Olson, president of a local of the National Border Patrol Council based in Ferndale.

But immigration officials say they could have had Vasquez in custody if only someone at the county jail had notified them of his release on the drug charge.

It's the second time in less than two years that an illegal alien with a criminal history has slipped through the immigration system in Eastern Washington, then ended up being accused of killing a policeman.

The first came in March 1998, when Juan Duarte Gonzalez, who had a long criminal history and a deportation history, was arrested and accused of shooting a police officer to death in Omak, in northeast Washington.

It turned out that he had been released from jail five months earlier and deported to his native Mexico. Federal prosecutors could have charged Gonzalez with illegal re-entry into the United States and sent him to prison for several years.

But confusion over his immigration file resulted in no charges being filed. Border Patrol agents said his file was lost at immigration offices in Seattle. The Immigration and Naturalization Service said the file was not lost; the Border Patrol never requested it.

Such illegal re-entry prosecutions are rarer than jail holds, which are common in Eastern Washington, said Tony Davis, chief agent for the Border Patrol in Spokane. Last year, his agents made about 1,300 arrests, with most taken to local jails.

Border Patrol and INS agents typically visit dozens of local jails each week, checking for illegal aliens likely to be deported, Davis said.

In fact, the Border Patrol agent responsible for Pasco had visited the jail a couple of times while Vasquez was there, but no one at the jail alerted him, Davis said.

Davis said the agent would have recognized Vasquez. The agent was responsible for two of Vasquez's three deportations, said Olson, the union local president. He would not disclose the agent's name.

Olson said Vasquez was deported in January 1996, October 1996 and October 1997.

But by the time Vasquez was released on bond in August, the agent had been temporarily transferred to Nogales, Ariz.

Yesterday, Olson blamed Vasquez's freedom on the transfers.

Such transfers of agents from the Northwest to bolster the Southwest border with Mexico have caused turmoil. Recently, six Border Patrol agents in the Northwest began 35-day assignments in Douglas, Ariz. Six other Northwest agents will replace them.

Olson's union has protested the transfers, saying the agents are needed in the Northwest and that six agents can do little to strengthen a Southwest border staff that has 8,200 agents.

Recently, Washington's three congressmen whose districts border Canada wrote a letter of protest to the head of the INS.

"If you feel that more agents are needed on the southern border, then your agency should use its ample funding to train new agents instead of moving agents from our already-shorthanded northern border," wrote U.S. Reps. Jack Metcalf, Doc Hastings and George Nethercutt, all Washington Republicans.

But both Davis and Irene Mortensen, a spokeswoman for the INS regional office in Seattle, said the transfer shouldn't have kept a hold from being put on Vasquez.

Another Border Patrol agent, as well as two INS agents, are based in the Tri-Cities, Davis said. Jail officials could have notified them about Vasquez.

Davis said the jail typically does that.
"We have a pretty good relationship with them, and they're pretty good about doing this," Davis said.

Sheriff's Capt. Rick Long of the Franklin County Corrections Center would not comment specifically on the Vasquez case.
But he noted that Border Patrol agents are frequently in his jail and are checking records to find deportable aliens.

Franklin County Prosecutor Steve Lowe said he doubts an INS hold would have guaranteed that Vasquez would have been locked up. Some aliens manage to make bail and get released from INS detention, Lowe said.

However, bail would seem unlikely in the case of Vasquez.

After the hold, aliens are taken into INS custody.

Some are eligible for bail, Davis said.

But those with serious criminal records are not.

Vasquez pleaded guilty in January 1996 to drug possession in Franklin County.

Olson said he also has a criminal record in California.

Funeral services for Trooper Saunders, who left behind a pregnant wife and 2-year-old daughter, will be held tomorrow in Kennewick and Leavenworth.

Vasquez faces a charge of aggravated murder, and prosecutors may seek the death penalty against him.


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P-I reporter Scott Sunde can be reached at 206-448-8331 or scottsunde@seattle-pi.com