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The hard-left mayor of Chicago (shown) isn’t just defending the city’s decision to release an illegal alien who then was charged with molesting a child. She’s also blaming Immigration and Customs Enforcement for the crime.
ICE had placed a detainer on the Mexican suspect, who grabbed a little girl at a McDonald’s, police allege, but once again Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s sanctuary city obstructed the agency, then harbored and aided and abetted the convicted felon by setting him free.
The cops are unrepentant. And the mayor says ICE should do a better job.
The Crime
Doing that job would be a lot easier if Lightfoot would cooperate with the agency, but in any event, the latest victim, a three-year-old girl, wouldn’t be a victim if the city hadn’t defied ICE and freed 34-year-old Christopher Puente.
After the agency lodged a detainer in June to hold the previously deported felon after cops collared him on a theft charge, the city — with its renegade sanctuary policy — ignored it and freed him.
That led to the molestation at the McDonald’s.
Puente was assisted by a sign-language interpreter in court Feb. 20. He listened to prosecutors as they detailed his alleged acts perpetrated after the little girl’s father says he took his son and daughter to the men’s bathroom, taking the boy into a stall with him, and leaving her outside.
According to prosecutors, Puente motioned for the girl to enter his stall, when she did so, the defendant closed the stall and locked it. Puente said that he had the victim by the back of the head, covered [her] mouth, and told her “shhhh.”
Prosecutors said the girl’s father heard his daughter’s cries and desperately tried to open the locked stall. He could see her feet dangling off the ground, so he grabbed her legs and pulled her out from under the stall. He ran out of the bathroom with her, leaving Puente inside the bathroom.
The girl was hospitalized.
Thanks to surveillance pictures, cops quickly caught Puente, who confessed.
We Don’t Care
Lightfoot and city cops don’t see the problem with releasing a previously deported felon. And no matter how many little girls illegal aliens molest, the ABC affiliate reported, the cops promise to keep releasing them:
The Chicago Police Department remains committed to protecting all Chicago residents regardless of their immigration status. Our pledge to restrict ICE access to our information systems and our refusal to cooperate with ICE immigration enforcement measures has not changed.
Cops aren’t, apparently, worried about protecting little girls from molesters.
Lightfoot blamed ICE, the station reported. “If ICE is complaining, then they should do their job better,” the leftist said:
They’re critical because we have said very clearly we are a welcoming city, a sanctuary city. Chicago Police Department will not cooperate with ICE on any immigration-related business. And that’s affected their ability to conduct immigration raids across the city. But that’s exactly our intention. We have to make sure our police department is seen as a legitimate force in all our communities.
ICE has filed another detainer, and although Puente is now being held without bond, city residents must be worried that Lightfoot might find a way to set him free again.
Ignored Detainers
As The New American reported on Monday, Puente is only the latest dangerous felon the city government has loosed upon unsuspecting and unprotected residents.
Chicago is part of Cook County, which ignored more than 1,000 detainers last year and freed drunks, molesters, and violent criminals.
Though Lightfoot and the city are responsible for the little girl’s rape because they freed Puente, her parents will not likely succeed if they sue the city. Even if they succeed in lower courts, a leftist federal judge would likely rule for the city.
Last year, the federal Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals shot down the lawsuit that Kate Steinle’s family filed against San Francisco, which freed the five-time Mexican deportee, a repeat felon, who murdered the 32-year-old. Courts also ruled against the Bologna family, which lost a father and two sons to an MS-13 gangbanger.
The question is, when will federal authorities crack down and file obstruction, harboring, and aiding and abetting charges against the officials who have declared the city in open insurrection against the federal government?
Photo: AP Images
R. Cort Kirkwood is a long-time contributor to The New American and a former newspaper editor.
