Illegal immigrants stopped in Oklahoma

Friday, April 21st 2000, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

(Shawnee-AP) The Immigration and Naturalization Service has taken custody of 41 illegal immigrants in traffic stops in Shawnee and near El Reno. An agent with the Pottawatomie County District Attorney's Narcotics Unit stopped a Ryder moving truck Thursday on US Highway 177 and discovered 30 illegal immigrants, agent Kent Dowell said. It was not immediately known why the vehicle was stopped. Officials identified the driver as Yuril De Leon Vasquez, 23, of Chiapas, Mexico. An investigation into the other men's country of origin is continuing, but officials said they were from the same Mexican village. The men, some as young as 16 or 17, told officials they were on their way to Florida to work as farm laborers, Dowell said. The INS transported the group to Oklahoma City. Linda Rebbett, the officer in charge of the INS office in Oklahoma City, said the men will be advised of their options. If they elect to voluntarily return to their country of citizenship, they will be returned quickly, she said. They could go before a judge if they select another option, and that would take place before they could be returned to Mexico, she said. Canadian County Sheriff Lewis Hawkins said 11 illegal immigrants were arrested in a van with an Alabama license plate about 6:30pm Thursday on Interstate 40 near Fort Reno. Hawkins said the van was pulled over after it repeatedly cross the center line. The sheriff said all the van occupants identified themselves as Mexicans and none had paperwork to prove they were in the United States legally. He said they had been doing construction work in Elk City recently.