When 41-year-old Fernando Nolasco Mendez gets through serving a 20-year sentence for stabbing to death his 28-year-old wife nearly two years ago, the Immigration and Naturalization Service will deport him to Mexico.

On Monday, Limestone County Circuit Court Judge Jimmy Woodroof sentenced Mendez to 20 years after he pleaded guilty to murder in the March 13, 2005, of Marcaria Archundia Martinez, according to District Attorney Kristi Valls.

“Once he is released, the INS has a hold on him and he will be deported,” Valls said.

Authorities say jealousy was the motive when Mendez plunged a 7-1?2-inch blade into the right side of his wife’s chest.

Relatives had apparently told Mendez his wife was seeing another man. Martinez had purportedly told Mendez she was leaving him for someone else a week before the murder. As well as the fatal wound to her chest, Martinez had defensive wounds to her hands, investigators said.

The couple, who lived in Swan Creek Community trailer park that was formerly Lawson’s Trailer Park, south of the Tanner crossroads, had two children, a 10-year-old son and a 2-year-old daughter.

Martinez was dead at the scene after the couple’s son dialed 911 at 1:21 a.m. that Sunday. Investigators soon determined that Mendez, a bricklayer working with a Huntsville firm, was in the country illegally.

Mendez did not try to flee, but stayed at the mobile home until authorities arrived, according to investigators. Authorities had to use an interpreter to interview Mendez because he does not speak English.

A grand jury indicted Mendez for murder in July 2005.