Immigrant illegally re-entered US after being deported, committed drug crime in Kansas

A man who has been deported from the United States four times will go to federal prison after he finishes serving a state prison sentence for a drug crime.

Mexican citizen Jose Rafael Gutierrez-Yanez, 29, was sentenced on Tuesday to 37 months in federal prison. He previously pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Wichita to one count of reentry of a removed alien, a felony.

Gutierrez-Yanez admitted in his plea agreement that Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, had deported him to Mexico four times: on May 2 and Oct. 3, 2015; on June 10, 2016; and on Oct. 6, 2017. He reentered the country within about five months of his last deportation, or sometime before he was found in Kansas on March 12, 2018.

That is the same date he committed a drug crime in Sumner County, according to Kansas Department of Corrections records. He was convicted of distributing or possession with intent to distribute drugs. He is in the custody of the Ellsworth Correction Facility and has an earliest possible release date from state prison of Jan. 9, 2022.

His just over three years in federal prison will start after his state prison sentence ends.