California’s sanctuary law is the reason the illegal-alien suspected of murdering a cop was not deported.
Stanislaus County Sheriff Adam Christianson (shown) pinned blame for the murder not just on Gustavo Perez Arriaga, the 32-year-old illegal alien who, police allege, pulled the trigger on Corporal Ronil Singh. He also blamed the state’s sanctuary law, which forbids state and local authorities from turning illegal aliens over to federal immigration authorities.
Two DUI Arrests
Arriaga is an habitual drunk driver, Christianson told reporters last Friday, who should have been deported to Mexico where he belongs, the Modesto Bee reported.
Instead, he was still in the country. When Singh pulled Arriaga over yet again for drunk driving, the suspect opened fire, police allege. He was on his way to Mexico when cops collared him after the murder.
The newspaper unearthed Arriago’s record behind the wheel:
Arriaga pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor DUI with injury in Madera County Superior Court in September 2014 and was sentenced to five days in jail, fined $1,883 and ordered to attend a first-time DUI offender program, according to the superior court’s clerks office. Arriaga also was placed on three years’ bench or informal probation.
The clerk’s office said a $15,000 bench warrant was issued in January 2015 for a defendant identified as Gustavo Perez, who has the same birth date as Gustavo Perez Arriaga, for failing to appear at his arraignment in another misdemeanor DUI case.
Arriaga has ties to the murderous Sureño street gang.
“This is a criminal illegal alien with prior criminal activity that should have been reported to [U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement],” the sheriff told reporters, the Bee continued. “We were prohibited, law enforcement was prohibited because of sanctuary laws and that led to the encounter with Singh.”
“The outcome could have been different if law enforcement wasn’t restricted, prohibited or had their hands tied because of political interference.”
Christianson questioned Senate Bill 54, which blocks state and local cops from helping federal immigration authorities from deporting illegal-alien criminals. It even prohibits law-enforcement authorities from even asking a suspect about his immigration status. The law makes it nearly impossible for state and local cops to turn an illegal-alien criminal over to ICE. To do so, they need a warrant from a federal judge.
“Why are we providing sanctuary for criminals, gang members?” the sheriff asked. “It’s a conversation we need to have.”
The state law passed after Arriaga committed the DUIs that most would say should result in deportation. But in an e-mail to the Modesto Bee after the news conference, the sheriff pointed to California’s TRUST Act, passed in 2014, which “limited law enforcement cooperation with ICE unless the arrestee had already been convicted of serious crimes.”
On a positive note, the department took down seven others they say were Arriaga’s accomplices, the Bee reported, including his brother and his girlfriend. As well, cops found what they believe to the gun Arriaga used to kill Singh.
Other Illegal-alien Murderers
The state leftist politicians have been shielding illegal-alien criminals from deportation for years.
One of the most famous victims of state and local sanctuary policies is San Francisco’s Kate Steinle, who was shot dead by an illegal alien with seven felony arrests who had been deported five times. A jury acquitted the killer of murder; the defense claimed the shooting was accidental.
But before Kate Steinle, the Bologna family was the victim. Edwin Ramos, yet another illegal-alien felon who escaped deportation thanks to the city’s leftist officials, cut down 49-year-old Tony Bologna and his sons, Michael and Matthew, in a hail of gunfire in June 2008.
Ramos, a member of MS-13, was convicted of multiple felonies as a juvenile, the San Franciso Chronicle reported, but the city protected the illegal-alien felon from deportation three times, the first two after juvenile felony convictions.
An informant told the FBI in 2006 that Ramos had murdered a rival gang member. The same informant told the FBI and immigration agents in 2005 that Ramos was responsible for two shootings.
The city freed Ramos a third time after cops collared the gangbanger on a gun charge three months before he murdered the three Bolognas.
Leftists Committed To Protecting Criminals
Even with that knowledge, the state’s leftist remained committed to sanctuary and passed the bill the sheriff claims is responsible for the murder of Singh, a legal immigrant who wanted nothing more than be a cop.
SB54’s sponsor was State Senator Kevin de León, a hard-core radical who hosted an Abolish ICE Cream social such is his commitment to protecting illegal-alien savages from deportation.
And as The New American reported, Governor Jerry Brown has repeatedly pardoned illegal-alien felons to stop ICE from deporting them.
Stanislaus County Sheriff Adam Christianson: AP Images
