The repeated arrest of illegal aliens for sex crimes in Montgomery County, Maryland, has apparently moved county chief Marc Elrich to partly reverse the sanctuary policy he declared in July.
That policy blocked Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents from secure parts of the county lockup. But now, WJLA 7 in Washington, D.C., reported this weekend, jail officials can permit federal immigration gumshoes access to certain parts of the facility to apprehend illegal aliens.
But the county will still free illegal-alien suspects if ICE agents don’t move quickly enough.
The New Policy
The station’s Kevin Lewis has been tracking the county’s sanctuary policy for some time, particulary as it relates to the apprehension of illegal-alien sex-crime suspects, and in at least one case, the release of such a suspect after ICE filed a detainer.
A detainer asks the custodial authority to hold the illegal alien until ICE agents can arrive and put him in cuffs.
Until now, Elrich, a Democrat, arrogantly thumbed his nose at ICE: We won’t help you detain illegal-alien criminals.
But over the weekend, Lewis reported a slight change in that dangerous policy.
“Effective immediately, Montgomery County correctional officers have been instructed to grant ICE clearance to ‘identified areas’ of the jail to ‘ensure that transfers are conducted in a safe environment,’” Lewis reported.
ICE had complained that Elrich’s original policy required agents to apprehend illegals in public, where they could endanger bystanders or have obtained a weapon to resist arrest.
But ICE must still “submit an immigration detainer and arrive at the jail … prior to the defendant’s scheduled release time. Should ICE fail to submit the proper paperwork or get caught in traffic, MoCo will continue to free undocumented immigrants regardless of the charge.”
Lewis observed that the time required to discharge an inmate varies considering “jail staffing, inmate population, and home address verification checks.”
As well, “should ICE fail to submit the proper detainer paperwork — or simply get caught in traffic on Interstate 95 — Montgomery County will continue to free undocumented immigrants via the jail lobby, regardless of the charge/s they stand accused of.”
In the past, Elrich blithely dismissed the idea that traffic might be a problem. “The idea that they can’t get here is ludicrous,” he told reporters in August.
Montgomery County residents can only pray they don’t cross the path of a Guatemalan Charles Manson who was just released from the jail in a very bad mood.
Worked With ICE
Elrich had said back then that he might soften his anti-ICE policy, and seems to have done so in October when the county cooperated with ICE on keeping a child-molestion suspect in custody.
On October 21, Lewis reported, Jose Reyes Alvarez-Vasquez, a 42-year-old illegal alien who lives in Gaithersburg, posted bond after cops collared him in connection with sexual abuse of a child, attempted second-degree rape, and three counts of third-degree sex offense.
Because jailers called ICE about Alvarez-Vasquez, the federal agents were there when he was released.
Here’s the man who nearly got away:
According to court documents, Alvarez-Vasquez began to molest his stepdaughter in 2013. She was nine-years-old at the time. The sexual abuse reportedly continued until last year when the girl, now 14, became depressed and started harming herself. Shortly thereafter, the girl told her mother what had been taking place.
“[The victim’s] mother confronted suspect who denied the allegations,” police wrote in court documents. “Suspect was kicked out of the household, but later returned to live with the family.”
The victim told investigators about three separate instances where Alvarez-Vasquez touched her private areas. In one case the girl was in bed. In another, she was playing hide and go seek with her siblings. The victim described a fourth encounter where Alvarez-Vasquez tried to remove her clothing and force sex. The girl managed to kick the five-foot-eight, 160-pound man and then ran away.
“He tried to put it in and I felt it,” the victim told investigators.
Despite that, Lewis reported, ICE agents still can’t enter “secure portions of the jail for any reason aside from pre-authorized custody transfer,” and they remain “banned from non-public areas of all county-owned facilities to include libraries, police stations and recreation centers.”
In August, the county released an illegal-alien rape suspect despite ICE’s filing a detainer.
As The New American reported in September, the county has refused to cooperate with ICE since 2014, and Elrich hardened that policy in August to include punishing officials who do help federal immigration agents.
Lewis’s many reports suggest the county is teeming with illegal-alien sex fiends, which is likely one reason Elrich dialed his dangerous policy back a notch.
