Immigration and Customs Enforcement reported this week that state law forced a reluctant sheriff in Orange County, California, once a hard-line conservative area that sent Republicans to Congress, to ignore more than 1,000 detainers for illegal immigrants and release a veritable army of violent illegal-alien thugs in 2019.
And officials in Charlottesville, Virginia, and New York City freed illegal-alien criminals, ICE also reported, which forced agents to find the criminals and re-arrest them.
Thus continues the subversion of federal immigration law, which amounts to rebellion against federal authority, obstruction of justice, aiding, abetting, and harboring illegal aliens and federal fugitives.
Orange County Anarchy
The problem for Orange County is California Senate Bill 54, which blocks state and local authorities from cooperating with ICE.
“According to data recently released from the Orange County Sheriff’s Department, in the two years since the implementation of California’s State Bill 54 (SB54), the sheriff’s department has rearrested more than 400 of those they released on whom ICE had active detainers,” ICE reported this week. “The aliens who were rearrested include those with charges including: rape, assault with a deadly weapon, child sex offenses, domestic violence, identify theft, and driving under the influence.”
The data released to ICE demonstrate just what a real danger to the lives of Californians the Democrat Party has become.
Though ICE lodged 1,507 detainers for illegal-alien criminals from Orange County jails, the agency reported, 1,015 of them were loosed upon the unsuspecting public without notification to ICE. Cops rearrested 238 of the thugs.
ICE also provided data for 2018: Of the 1,823 detainers on illegal-alien thugs, SB54 forced the jail to release 1,106 without notification to ICE. Cops rearrested 173 of that bunch.
Unlike pro-sanctuary sheriffs elsewhere in the country, such as Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, Sheriff Don Barnes is none too happy about it, ICE reported.
“SB 54 has made our community less safe. The law has resulted in new crimes because my deputies were unable to communicate with their federal partners about individuals who committed serious offenses and present a threat to our community if released,” said Don Barnes, Orange County Sheriff-Coroner. “The two-year social science experiment with sanctuary laws must end. Rather than protect our immigrant community, the law has enabled offenders to be released, often times back into the immigrant communities they prey upon, and create new victims.”
Subversion in Virginia and New York
On February 3, ICE caught Marissa Martinez, 29, a border jumper the Albemarle-Charlottesville Regional Jail released despite an ICE detainer.
“Martinez had pending charges for sexual assault of a child and assault when she was released from the Albemarle-Charlottesville Regional Jail and has since been re-arrested charged with felony indecent liberties with a child,” the agency reported.
Even worse, “after the second arrest, she was again released … despite an active detainer.”
Federal immigration policy is partly to blame in the Martinez case, ICE confessed. Border Patrol collared the Guatemalan sex-crime suspect when she crossed the border on May 9, 2018. Transferred to ICE, the agency released her with an ankle monitor in July, then freed her from the monitoring in March 2019, hoping, vainly, she would obey the law and return for her immigration proceedings.
Charlottesville cops collared her on November 30 last year and charged her with misdemeanor sex assault of a child. The jail released her despite a detainer, “providing only one-hour notice to ICE officers.”
On January 3, Albemarle cops cuffed her for felony indecent liberties with a child. But the jail ignored a detainer and let her go.
A case in New York is much the same story.
On January 31, ICE collared a 39-year-old Mexican rape suspect, Martin Estrada-Barela.
New York City cops arrested him on January 17, 2019 for attempted rape, unlawful imprisonment, and attempted assault, ICE reported. The city released him a month later despite a detainer.
Last month, ICE issued a subpoena to the city for information about him. The city ignored it.
How many more rapes and other sex crimes the two might have committed before ICE caught them is unknown.
ICE hit New York with other subpoenas as well.
Data from the last two years provide a picture of the crime problem that ICE is trying to clean up — without much help from certain locales. Last year, ICE issued 165,487 detainers on illegal-alien thugs who committed 56,000 assaults, 14,500 sex crimes, 5,000 robberies, 2,500 homicides, and 2,500 kidnappings. ICE lodged 177,147 detainers in 2018.
Photo: LukaTDB / E+ / Getty Images Plus
