Yet again, authorities in Montgomery County, Maryland, have released an illegal-alien rape suspect.
This time, WJLA’s Kevin Lewis reported yesterday, the suspect is accused of raping a seven-year-old girl, and despite an immigration detainer from Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the jail released him.
In another case, ICE was forced to arrest a freed child-rape suspect in the parking lot of the county jail.
Last year, as The New American reported, Lewis divulged that the county did likewise: free an illegal-alien rape suspect despite a detainer from ICE.
The county declared itself a sanctuary years ago and has largely refused to cooperate with ICE.
Latest Case
The lucky illegal-alien this time is Rene Ramos-Hernandez, a 56-year-old Salvadoran living in Brentwood, just across the line from Washington, D.C.
Citing court documents, Lewis reported that Ramos-Hernandez “forced unwanted sexual intercourse” with a seven-year-old girl “at least ten times” from 2002 until 2003.
In 2017, the victim, who is now 25, went to Montgomery County cops, and in August 2018, detectives filed for an arrest warrant. Cops bagged the illegal-alien rape suspect on June 18 and charged him with two counts of second-degree rape and one count of sexual abuse of a minor, Lewis reported.
Child-rape charge regardless, the county let him go:
The following day, ICE’s Baltimore Field Office lodged a civil immigration detainer against Ramos-Hernandez, an undocumented immigrant from El Salvador. That same day, Montgomery County District Court Judge Zuberi Williams granted Ramos-Hernandez a $30,000 unsecured personal bond. Judge Williams tacked on a handful of restrictions, including electronic monitoring and curfew, plus ordered Ramos-Hernandez have no contact with minors.
On June 23, MCDC called ICE’s Law Enforcement Support Center in Vermont around 9:20 a.m. to report that the accused child rapist was processing out of jail and would likely be released within an hour. ICE believed it was not feasible to scramble agents to the jail in that timeframe. In turn, Ramos-Hernandez walked. He provided a residential address…. According to ICE, the 56-year-old remains at large.
Case No. 2
A second case is nearly as infuriating as the first.
Court documents say Linder Meza-Garcia, an 18-year-old border-jumping Honduran who lives in Silver Spring, “snuck into his 12-year-old ‘girlfriend’s’ Silver Spring house at least four times,” Lewis reported:
In three of those instances, the two engaged in sexual intercourse, police allege. On May 12, the girl’s mother found Meza-Garcia hiding in her middle-school-age daughter’s closet. It was 2 a.m.
“During an interview with [detectives], Victim A disclosed that she let Linder Meza-Garcia into her room through a window and they had vaginal intercourse,” authorities wrote in court filings, further noting that the sexual relationship spanned a few months.
Investigators interviewed Meza-Garcia, who reportedly confessed to having “vaginal intercourse” with the 12-year-old girl.
Nevertheless, he nearly escaped ICE, Lewis reported.
Cops arrested him on June 16, and ICE filed an immigraiton detainer the next day. The same day, a judge ordered him freed on a $10,000 unsecured personal bond, Lewis reported:
MCDC called ICE and alerted them to Meza-Garcia’s imminent release. Unlike in the case of Ramos-Hernandez, ICE managed to make it to the jail but agents were not granted access to the secure sally port. Instead, ICE apprehended the accused child rapist in the jail parking lot.
Bad as the county’s behavior was, federal authorities bear some responsibility not only for his near escape from jail but also for the crime with which he is charged: Border agents collared him in April 2019, but federal immigration authorities released him to live with a family member in Maryland.
Sanctuary Insanity
After several of Lewis’ reports on illegal-alien rape suspects, including one freed pursuant to the county’s sanctuary policy, last year, the county modified its sanctuary policy to allow more cooperation with ICE, which it had openly defied for some time.
Yet as a practical matter, the new guidelines for cooperating with the federal immigration agency don’t do much good.
Although the county will notify ICE when an illegal alien criminal suspect is about to be released on bail, federal agents must race to the jail and arrive before the authorities set an illegal free, perhaps to rape again.
In 2018, the Washington Post reported that county police or jail officials who trespass the county’s strict rules for cooperating with ICE will be punished.
Image: stocknroll/iStock/Getty Images Plus
R. Cort Kirkwood is a long-time contributor to The New American and a former newspaper editor.
