The Guyanese brother of a woman who murdered her mother-in-law has been deported for his role in the burglary that led to the victim’s death, according to a US newspaper, The Oregonian.

Sean A. Correia, 20, was escorted on Monday by a Homeland Security deportation officer to Guyana, where he was born but had not lived since infancy.

Under federal law, non-citizens can be deported after being convicted of or pleading guilty to aggravated felonies and some misdemeanours. Committing such crimes is a violation of US immigration law, said Ed Sale, spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security in Portland.

He was escorted out of Portland on a commercial flight after completing his term and was turned over to immigration officials in Georgetown, the Guyana capital, Sale said.

Correia’s wife, Susie Parker-Correia, said Tuesday that she has not decided whether to join her husband. The couple has a 1-year-old daughter.

“We talked every day, and I saw him when I could,” said Parker, 21. “But it’s a hard decision to make to leave my whole family and go all the way to South America.”

She said Correia was not able to line up employment in Guyana before he left and that she had no idea about the living conditions there. “I’m just waiting to hear from him,” Parker-Correia said. “I need to do some serious thinking this month.”

According to a report in The Oregonian, last year Correia pleaded guilty to residential burglary, theft and rendering criminal assistance in the Jan. 10, 2002, murder of Marlyne B. Johnson. He spent a year in jail.

His sister, Sophia S. Johnson, 24, was convicted April 9 in the bludgeoning death of her mother-in-law, who was found dead in the garage of her Brush Prairie home. Correia was the state’s star witness in Johnson’s two-week trial, testifying against his sister.

Johnson was sentenced last month to 43 years in prison. She has appealed her conviction.

Johnson is a Guyanese citizen, although she has lived in the United States since about age 5.