In 2011, Cook County, Illinois, passed an ordinance to defy detainers from Immigration and Customs Enforcement to hold illegal-alien criminals. Last year, hard-left Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot vowed to continue blocking federal immigration enforcement.
Last week, those policies policy claimed yet another victim.
A Mexican illegal alien molested a three-year-old child, ICE alleges, after Cook County ignored a detainer.
The convicted felon’s latest charge is no surprise given Chicago and Cook County’s open insurrection against federal authority.
In 2019, the county ignored more than 1,000 detainers.
The Detainer and the Crime
The story is nothing unusual. A leftist sanctuary hoping to create illegal-alien anarchy and get votes for the Democrat Party ignored a federal order to hold an illegal-alien thug. Result: The thug committed another crime.
“That’s what happened with the case of Christopher Puente, 34, a citizen of Mexico who is a previously-deported aggravated felon illegally present in the United States,” ICE reported.
In June, the agency lodged a detainer with Chicago police to hold Puente, a previously deported multiple felon. Cops collared him for theft, but ignored the detainer, as Lightfoot promised.
“That detainer was not honored and on Feb. 19, 2020, Puente was once again arrested, except this time it was for sexually assaulting a 3-year-old at a fast food restaurant,” the agency reported.
The agency did not divulge details about the victim.
The sex-crime suspect’s rap sheet is a typically long one and includes the following:
• Felony convictions for burglary and forgery;
• Deported on December 5, 2014;
• Bagged at the border just five days later: “Border agents encountered Puente at the Brownsville, Texas, border crossing. Puente claimed to be a U.S. citizen and presented a birth certificate. Puente was subsequently charged with falsely claiming citizenship and served a notice to appear before an immigration judge. On March 30, 2017, an immigration judge ordered Puente removed, in absentia, as he failed to show up for his immigration hearing.”
ICE has filed yet another detainer.
Part of Lightfoot’s order for cops to obstruct federal immigration enforcement includes blocking access to the city’s criminal database.
Robert Guadian, ICE field chief in Chicago, asked the obvious question: “How many more victims must there be before lawmakers realize that sanctuary policies do not protect the innocent? Puente should have been in ICE custody last year and removed to his home country. Instead, irresponsible lawmaking allowed him to walk free and prey on our most vulnerable.”
Other Illegals, Other victims
In January, the agency reported that Cook County released 1,070 criminal aliens and immigration violators in 2019 despite detainers.
The at-large criminals include 50-year-old Rasheed Abass, a South African illegal accused of indecent exposure and assault. The county ignored two detainers on Abass.
Another is murder suspect Rokas Ablacinskas, a 22-year-old Lithuanian, on December 3, 2018, the agency reported. The county jail freed him on September 17, 2019.
The county freed Isidro Ramirez-Hernandez, a 52-year-old Mexican accused of aggravated domestic battery and strangulation, on March 18, 2019 after ICE filed a detainer on December 10, 2018.
ICE also fears the county will release two others still in custody:
Kennete Acevedo Ortiz, a 28-year-old Nicaraguan national, is a three-time arrestee for drunk driving, domestic violence, and failure to appear. ICE has filed three detainers.
ICE predicts that Jordanian Mahmoud Abu Maghli, 27, will be released despite a detainer filed in August.
Sex Fiend Caught at the Border
As the Puente case shows, the problem for federal immigration authorities is that illegal-alien criminals re-enter the country almost at will. If they aren’t stopped at the border and reach the safety of a sanctuary, odds are that ICE won’t have the power to remove them, at least not without a fight from sanctuary subversives.
The latest from the border on that count is the arrest of an illegal-alien sex fiend near Dulurza, California, about 21 miles east of Chula Vista.
One of three Mexicans caught crossing the border, Customs and Border Protection reported, the sex criminal “had a 2006 felony conviction for Lewd or Lascivious Acts with a Child under 14…. The man was sentenced to 365 days in prison and subsequently deported to Mexico. His history also included several prior deportations.”
Question: What would have happened if he had disappeared into the country, only to be caught again for another sex crime?
Likelihood is, law enforcement in a sanctuary would release him despite a detainer from ICE.
Since the beginning of the year, the agency has been waging legal war on sanctuaries with subpoenas that demand information about illegal-alien thugs.
R. Cort Kirkwood is a long-time contributor to The New American and a former newspaper editor.
