Alien May Be Deported : $2-Million Winner Surrenders to INS

The second suspected illegal alien to win the $2-million jackpot in the California Lottery voluntarily surrendered Thursday to immigration officials and could face deportation.

Julio Morales, a 23-year-old Hollywood resident, reported to the Los Angeles district office of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service at 8 a.m., according to Deputy District Director Joseph Thomas.

“Due to the fact he turned himself in voluntarily, we released him on his own recognizance,” INS spokesman John Belluardo said.

“He was disappointed because of the attention given by the INS to participation of the undocumented in the lottery,” said attorney Alfredo Rodriguez, who accompanied Morales Thursday.

Jose Caballero of San Jose was the first $2-million lottery winner discovered to be an illegal alien. He admitted entering the country illegally from Mexico, and has since returned to Mexico in lieu of deportation.

Like Caballero, Morales came to the attention of immigration officials because of publicity about his financial windfall. Agents began their “preliminary inquiry,” Thomas said, because of public and media inquiries.

Morales is a construction worker who speaks little English.

He bought his ticket in a local liquor store, and, before the event, said if he won he would “buy a house.”

Speaking through an interpreter after winning, he said that he came from Suchitepeque, a small village in southern Guatemala, and moved to the United States two years ago. He is unmarried and, according to INS officials, lives with a sister in Hollywood. She and her two children were already facing deportation hearings next February.

INS agents obtained Morales’ telephone number from lottery officials, Thomas said. “We reached his sister and she said he would turn himself in.”

“We will request of the judge that his (Morales’) hearing be consolidated with hers,” he added.

No date has been set.