MIAMI — An illegal alien convicted of a fatal hit-and-run in Okaloosa County that killed 63-year-old Florida resident David Hayes in 2021 has been deported after serving a prison sentence, ICE announced.
Hilda Esperanza Lopez-Hernandez was driving a red Ford Mustang without a driver’s license when she collided with Hayes’ vehicle. She fled the scene, pulled into a nearby restaurant, called her boyfriend and swapped vehicles with him to conceal her involvement. Neither she nor her boyfriend called police. Hayes was discovered and pronounced dead at the scene.
“Hilda Esperanza Lopez-Hernandez entered the country as a teenager, but she was an adult when she fled the scene of an accident without bothering to check on the other driver,” said ICE Director Todd M. Lyons. “Not only did she choose to remain in the U.S. illegally, drive without a license and leave the scene of an accident - she was prepared to let her boyfriend take the blame.”
Lopez-Hernandez was convicted in Okaloosa County of hit-and-run, operating a motor vehicle without a license and hiding evidence on Jan. 9, 2023, and sentenced to four years in prison. ICE Miami arrested her upon her release from jail pursuant to an honored immigration detainer and deported her April 12.
Lopez-Hernandez had been living in the country unlawfully for years before the fatal crash. She entered the United States in 2014 with her mother and another child. Border Patrol apprehended them en route to Fort Walton Beach, where they planned to live with a family member. They were released under the Obama administration with a notice to appear in immigration court. On May 10, 2018, Lopez-Hernandez failed to show up for her hearing, and an immigration judge ordered her removed in absentia.
Despite that 2018 removal order, Lopez-Hernandez remained in the country — unlicensed and unaccounted for — until the fatal collision three years later. Her case underlines the enforcement gap between immigration court orders and actual removal, a gap ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations has targeted with expanded detainer cooperation from local jails.