A Guatemalan woman who spent eight years in prison for causing a fatal school bus crash in southwestern Minnesota and was later deported has been sentenced to another two years in prison for coming back into the United States.
Olga Marina Franco del Cid of Inver Grove Heights was sentenced Thursday in U.S. District Court in St. Paul after pleading guilty to illegal re-entry after removal from the country and using a false Social Security number.
Once the two years have been served, Franco del Cid will again be deported, according to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
In 2008, Franco del Cid ran a stop sign and crashed a van into a school bus in Cottonwood, killing four children under age 13. The crash further fueled the national immigration debate. She was convicted of four counts of criminal vehicular homicide and 17 counts of criminal vehicular operation, giving a false name to police, failing to stop at the entrance to a thruway and driving without a valid license.
Responders at the scene found Franco del Cid behind the steering wheel, her right foot wedged under a crumpled dashboard near the accelerator. Her attorneys argued that her boyfriend was the one driving and fled because he didn't want to be deported to Mexico. They argued that he was thrown out of the van on impact, and Franco del Cid was thrown into the driver's seat.
Franco del Cid was deported in 2016 after her release from prison. ICE took her into custody in November after receiving a tip that she had returned to Minnesota.
