Juan Angel Hernandez Lara

Hernandez Lara, a former officer of the Honduras army and a member of Battalion 316, was the first ex-military in Latin America to be deported thanks to the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) Detention and Deportation program. Hernandez Lara had clandestinely entered into the United States through the Mexican border in 1989 and settled down in Palm Beach County, Florida. He asked for political asylum arguing that his previous involvement in the Battalion 316 activities put him in danger in Honduras. His petition was not accepted.

The INS arrested him in June 2000 and in January next year a judge ordered his deportation because of his notorious participation in activities carried out by the Battalion, including his participation in the torture of four people. Afterwards he declared that, although he was a member of the Battalion, he never tortured nor killed anyone and that he had previously made up that story to gain support for his asylum request.

Some agents of the INS escorted Hernandez Lara back to Honduras, but he managed to return to the United States shortly afterwards, passing illegally through the Mexican borders again. The International Educational Missions officers reported the fact to the Immigration and Naturalization Services and he was arrested again in March 2001. The charges against him were the violation of a law enacted in 1996 that prohibits people who have been deported from going back into the USA.

By the end of 2003 immigration agents were fully aware of Lara’s presence in Palm Beach County, where his wife had always remained. In April 2004 he was arrested again.