A rash of high-profile crimes attributed to illegal immigrants is upending the immigration debate, forcing sanctuary cities to rethink their policies and causing new headaches for President Biden as he prepares to visit the border on Thursday.
Federal authorities confirmed this week that the man charged with killing a nursing student in Georgia, a man charged with murdering a 2-year-old in Maryland, and a man who shot three police officers in the nation’s capital were in the country illegally.
Some were part of Mr. Biden’s catch-and-release tidal wave at the border. Others had long criminal records but escaped deportation thanks to sanctuary policies that protected them and a lack of resources for the Homeland Security Department to track them down.
In New York, where two illegal immigrant gang members from Venezuela have been implicated in the mob attack on police officers last month, Mayor Eric Adams said it is time to rewrite the city’s strict sanctuary policy to allow at least some cooperation with deportation authorities.
In Montgomery County, Maryland, Executive Marc Elrich promised renewed cooperation with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. His county was dinged twice last year for releasing Nilson Noel Trejo-Granados, an illegal immigrant now charged with first-degree murder in the slaying of a toddler in neighboring Prince George’s County.
ICE had placed “detainer” requests asking to be notified of Mr. Trejo-Granados’ release, but Montgomery County defied both requests, allowing him to be free when Jeremy Poou-Caceres was killed and his mother wounded in crossfire from a shootout.
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Mr. Elrich said his county already cooperates with ICE on serious crimes but he will revisit the list. He promised to give deportation officers twice as much time to pick up illegal immigrants about to be released and said he approved a list of deportation targets of people currently in custody.
“We read the list of people and we reassured [ICE] every single one of these people we will work with them,” he said.
The county said any decision to refuse cooperation would be finalized at the top levels.
Mr. Adams said New York’s blanket sanctuary policy needs to change to allow cooperation when illegal immigrants are involved in felonies.
“We should be communicating with ICE, and if ICE makes the determination of deporting, then they should,” Mr. Adams said.
That challenges the core of the sanctuary argument, which is that ICE is too aggressive in targeting illegal immigrants. Sanctuary advocates say the aggressiveness is unfair to migrants and discourages them from working with local police.
Sanctuary jurisdictions exploded in number during the Trump administration as states, cities and counties competed to try to defy the president and his tough talk on immigration. The chaos that has erupted under Mr. Biden is leading to second thoughts.
Jonathan Fahey, who ran ICE in the waning days of the Trump administration, said some politicians now embracing ICE used to be among the agency’s harshest critics, conjuring images of deportation agents arresting school students and grandmothers.
In reality, he said, ICE was always chiefly going after criminals and people ignoring deportation orders, and sanctuary policies were protecting those criminals.
“In fact, what they’re doing is, even the most serious violent offenders — sex offenders, murderers, violent crimes — they’re releasing those people into the public and thwarting ICE from removing them,” he said. “They did this for political benefit, and people like Eric Adams got the political benefit. Then got elected. Now it’s not as politically helpful.”
Mr. Fahey said the spate of crimes was easily foreseeable.
“Everyone knew it would come to this,” he said. “Everyone knew there would be situations like this that were the result of these policies, and they didn’t care because the most important thing to them was this open-borders agenda.”
The crimes over the past month in which illegal immigrants have been implicated include:
• The slaying of Laken Hope Riley, a nursing student in Georgia. Jose Antonio Ibarra, an illegal immigrant from Venezuela, has been charged in her death. He sneaked into the U.S. in 2022 and was arrested in New York last year but was released before ICE could pick him up.
• The sexual assault of a young teen girl in Campbell County, Virginia.
• The shooting of three police officers in the District of Columbia as they tried to serve a warrant on animal cruelty charges. ICE says Stephen Clause Rattigan is an illegal immigrant from Jamaica who was deported but sneaked back into the country.
• A wild police chase in Maryland after a man stole a state highway agency tow truck and smashed it into more than a dozen vehicles. ICE said the suspect, Flavio Cesar Lanuza, is an illegal immigrant from Nicaragua who was caught and released at the border.
• The mob attack on police officers in New York, which authorities say was perpetrated by migrants caught and released at the border under Mr. Biden. Two of them have been identified as Venezuelan gang members who had other run-ins with the law but were released by local authorities.
Ahead of Mr. Biden’s border visit, the White House called Ms. Riley’s case “heartbreaking” but cited the ongoing investigation in declining to say more.
Mr. Biden will compete at the border with former President Donald Trump, who will be several hours away in Eagle Pass, Texas.
Both are expected to hear from Border Patrol agents about the chaos.
Immigrant rights activists fear the shift in the tenor of the debate and called for breathing space after Mr. Ibarra was arrested in the Georgia slaying.
“An individual committed this crime, and that individual must be brought to justice. At the same time, elected officials and candidates should not use this heartbreaking case for political ends or to generate fear,” said Jennie Murray, president and CEO of the National Immigration Forum. “We need leaders who will bring us together, not sow division.”
The combination of border releases, sanctuary cities, and ICE’s 6 million case backlog of illegal immigrants is creating a powerful headwind for those activists and for Mr. Biden.
Jessica Vaughn, policy studies director at the Center for Immigration Studies, said the crime wave may be linked to Mr. Biden’s border policies because of the sheer number of new illegal immigrants heading to sanctuary jurisdictions.
“All of these misguided policies, whether it’s the sanctuary policy or the restricted enforcement policy and the open border catch-and-release policy, all create this disastrous mix,” she said. “This just encourages more illegal immigration. There’s no question that the criminals know where they are likely to suffer no consequences.”
In Montgomery County in Maryland and Athens, Georgia, where Ms. Riley was killed, local officials bristled at being labeled sanctuary jurisdictions.
Mr. Elrich said real sanctuaries refuse all cooperation with ICE. He pointed to San Francisco as an example. Montgomery County, he said, refuses only when the crime does not appear serious.
“We have a good list of things for which we people over to ICE,” he said, listing human trafficking, gun trafficking and violent crimes. “Just not the deportation of individuals for low-level crimes.”
Athens Mayor Kelly Girtz said, “That term means different things to different people depending on the context of the discussion.”
His constituents shouted him down with chants of “liar” and “you’ve got blood on your hands.”
Mr. Girtz warned against conflating immigration and crime. Mr. Elrich said immigrants have lower crime rates than native-born Americans.
Data on illegal immigrants and higher crime rates are conflicting beyond the obvious issue that many of them entered the U.S. illegally, a misdemeanor under federal law, and rely on fraudulent documents to stay.
Indeed, federal authorities this week revealed that they charged Diego Ibarra, brother of homicide suspect Jose Ibarra, after Diego was found carrying a fake green card signifying he was a lawful permanent resident.
He, like his brother, sneaked into the U.S. He was released and then quickly notched three arrests on charges of driving under the influence of alcohol, shoplifting, and failure to appear, according to ICE.
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.
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