PROVIDENCE — A federal judge Thursday sentenced Gustavo Granados, a 39-year-old Mexican national, to 46 months in federal prison for illegally reentering the United States after being twice deported, according to U.S. Attorney Robert Clark Corrente.

Granados was convicted in 1992 in Rhode Island Family Court of second-degree child abuse and was sentenced to three years. After completion of his sentence at the Adult Correctional Institutions, in Cranston, in May 1995, he was deported as an aggravated felon.

Granados illegally reentered the country, but was eventually caught by authorities.

Thomas Connell, spokesman for Corrente, could not elaborate on the circumstances surrounding his capture but said Granados was deported again in October 1999.

He apparently reentered the country in July 2005 near Nogales, Ariz., and was most recently living in an apartment on Mowry Street in Central Falls. According to Connell, Granados stated to Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents that “he keeps coming [back] because he has family in Rhode Island.”

In January, East Providence police stopped a car that Granados was driving during a routine traffic stop, according to Corrente’s office.

The police subsequently contacted ICE for an immigration check after determining that Granados was in the country illegally.

ICE agents took Granados into custody Jan. 15 and charged him with illegal reentry. He has been held at the Wyatt Detention Facility, in Central Falls, since his arrest.

After the completion of his latest sentence, which was imposed by Senior U.S. District Judge Ernest C. Torres in Providence, Granados will again be deported.

He is the second such illegal immigrant in the past two months to have been imprisoned for illegal reentry. In May, Domingo Enrique Lorenzo-Ferrera, a 40-year-old convicted drug dealer from the Dominican Republic, was sentenced to 41 months in federal prison.

pmarcelo@projo.com