ICE handed an Indian national over to Oregon authorities this week to face trial for a fatal highway crash, and the immigration case will wait its turn until the state sorts out the criminal matter. MSN has the report.

This is how the system is supposed to work, for those keeping score at home. Criminal charges first, immigration case second. It's called a detainer transfer. I watched it happen a few thousand times out of Tucson. A jail holds somebody on local charges, ICE lodges a detainer so the person doesn't walk out the back door, and when the local case wraps up, the alien goes into immigration proceedings. Clean, orderly, boring. Boring is good in this line of work.

The crash at the center of this one killed somebody on an Oregon highway. That person doesn't get a do-over. The alien now sitting in Oregon custody does get a trial, a lawyer, and the whole apparatus of American due process, which is more courtesy than most countries extend to foreign nationals who show up and kill their citizens on the roadway.

After the state proceedings finish, ICE picks the case back up. If the trial ends in a conviction, that conviction makes the immigration case about as simple as they come. Aggravated felony convictions, and a fatal crash charge can qualify depending on how it's charged, generally lock in removal eligibility. No judge has to wring his hands over it. The paperwork practically writes itself.

If he's acquitted, ICE can still pursue removal on the underlying immigration violations. A manslaughter acquittal doesn't make you a legal resident. Two separate tracks, two separate courts, and the second one doesn't care what the first one decided unless it helps the government.

People ask me sometimes why ICE bothers with the criminal case first instead of just deporting the guy and saving everybody the trouble. Simple answer: the victim's family lives here. They get their day in court. Shipping the defendant home before trial would let him dodge an American courtroom for killing somebody on an American road, and that's a debt that gets paid here or it doesn't get paid at all.

So Oregon gets him for now. Then ICE gets him. That's the correct order of operations, and it's good to see it running the way it's drawn up.

Scoreboard: one transfer completed, one trial pending, one removal case queued behind it. Next.