Illegal immigrant charged with 6th DUI in Boxborough

Boxborough police said that Eduardo Alementa Torres, 48, who is originally from Mexico, was driving a 1988 Chevrolet pickup truck with an expired inspection sticker when an officer saw him at about 10:45 a.m. on the southbound ramp from Massachusetts Avenue to Interstate 495 and pulled him over.

The officer saw an open beer bottle on the passenger seat and detected a strong odor of alcohol, police said. Torres failed a field sobriety test and submitted to a breath test, which showed that his blood alcohol level was .09 percent, according to police.

The legal limit to drive in Massachusetts is .08 percent.

Police said Torres had no identification on him and gave the officer a false name.

Torres was identified when police ran his fingerprints through an automated identification system, and police also learned that he had three prior drunken driving convictions in California and two in Massachusetts, authorities said.

Police said that Torres is a previously deported fugitive wanted by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

In a phone interview, Torres’s brother, who requested his name not be used, said his brother, who called him from jail, works as a landscaper and has lived in Massachusetts for about five years.

“He said everything is OK, but he doesn’t tell me [anything] about what happened,’’ he said.

Torres’s arrest comes amid growing controversy in the Bay State over illegal immigration.

In June, Governor Deval Patrick announced his opposition to Secure Communities, a program scheduled for nationwide implementation in 2013 in which fingerprints of all suspects arrested in Massachusetts would be sent to federal immigration authorities for screening. Suspects found living in the country illegally could face deportation.

The program was launched in 2008, after it ran as a pilot program in Boston, and is now in 43 states and Puerto Rico.

While supporters have argued the program targets violent offenders and is vital for public safety, Patrick and other opponents have said that it could also encourage racial profiling and sow distrust of police in immigrant communities.

But three county sheriffs in Massachusetts have announced their intentions to implement Secure Communities in their jurisdictions.

And bills in the Massachusetts House and Senate filed last week would require the immigration status of people appearing in state courts to be verified. The bills would also toughen penalties for distributing false identification materials.

The debate over Secure Communities was reignited in August after Nicolas Guaman, an illegal immigrant from Ecuador with traffic violations, was accused of running over and killing Matthew Denice, 23, a motorcyclist in Milford, while intoxicated.

Immigration issues were also spotlighted recently when President Obama’s uncle, Onyango Obama, 67, was arrested Aug. 24 in Framingham on drunken driving and other charges and found to be in violation of a 1992 order to return to his native Kenya.

Yesterday, Sergeant Warren J. O’Brien, a Boxborough police spokesman, directed questions about Torres’s immigration status to US Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

A spokesman for that agency’s field office in Boston did not return messages yesterday.

A Registry of Motor Vehicles spokesman said no information on Torres’s driving record in Massachusetts or how he obtained a license was available yesterday.

Boxborough police said Torres was charged with operating under the influence of alcohol; operating with a suspended registration; operating an unregistered vehicle; possessing an open container of liquor in a vehicle; operating with a suspended driver’s license; giving a false name to a police officer; and operating without an inspection sticker. He is to be arraigned today in Ayer District Court.

Travis Andersen can be reached at tandersen@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @TAGlobe.