A string of high-profile crimes blamed on illegal immigrants hasn’t shaken Washington-area leaders, who say they are comfortable with their sanctuary policies that limit cooperation with federal deportation authorities.
City and county officials say they have struck the right balance in working with the Department of Homeland Security on the most serious violent crimes while refusing to cooperate when illegal immigrants are arrested for lower-level offenses.
They rejected the narrative of a migrant-fueled crime rampage.
“It sounds like coming up with something about undocumented citizens committing crimes is just something to start a fight,” said Jolene Ivey, chair of the Prince George’s County Council. Ms. Ivey said she has heard no complaints about illegal immigrant crime in the five years the county has had a sanctuary policy in place. “I don’t have any outreach from the community about it right now.”
Most jurisdictions in the metropolitan area have limits on cooperating with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the federal deportation agency.
Prince George’s County won’t hold illegal immigrants for pickup and will notify ICE of an impending release only in cases of convictions of crimes such as murder, kidnapping, sex offenses, serious assaults and gun crimes connected to violence.
Montgomery County has a similar list.
In Virginia, the sheriff’s departments in Fairfax and Arlington counties have limited their pre-release notifications to ICE as well.
ICE said the result is that 119 “detainer” requests to Montgomery County in fiscal 2024 have gone unanswered, as did 194 requests last year.
In Prince George’s County, 148 requests have gone unanswered this year, and only one out of 88 was honored in 2023.
ICE did not provide data for the District or major Virginia counties, though a senior ICE official said cooperation with those jurisdictions is scarce.
Among the released, ICE said, was Nilson Trejo-Granados, who faces murder charges in connection with the Feb. 8 shootout that killed a 2-year-old caught in the crossfire.
ICE said Montgomery County arrested Mr. Trejo-Granados twice last year and the agency placed a detainer request each time. Both times, Montgomery County released him without notifying ICE.
County Executive Marc Elrich told reporters that the charges didn’t meet the county’s threshold for cooperation.
After a meeting with ICE, he said he would revisit the policy and add more crimes to the cooperation list. He also said his office, for now, will have to approve any county decision to decline to cooperate with an ICE detainer.
Mr. Elrich denied that Montgomery County is a “sanctuary” for illegal immigrants. He said the label is better applied to jurisdictions that refuse all cooperation.
He also took issue with ICE’s data. He said the county worked with immigration officials on a detainer request in recent days.
Those who want to limit cooperation with ICE say their motivation is to create a more welcoming community for immigrants, who may be unwilling to work with local police if they think officers are cooperating with ICE.
“What about a violent suspect who is not reported because the victim is afraid of ICE — rightly or wrongly — because we do know ICE makes mistakes,” D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson said.
ICE has rejected that narrative. The agency said it does not engage in sweeps and that the detainees sought from local prisons and jails, by definition, have criminal entanglements, often with victims in immigrant communities.
Mr. Mendelson, a leading liberal voice on the council since taking office in 1998, was doubtful. He said innocent people have been “swept up” in ICE investigations.
ICE has been highlighting local cases in which, according to the agency, criminals were released despite detainer requests over the past eight months.
They include Francis Torres Murcia, a Honduran man released by Fairfax County who was charged with rape and assault on a family member, a previously deported Honduran sex offender released by Howard County, and a Peruvian man released by Fairfax County after he was charged with two counts of sodomy of a child under 13 and three counts of aggravated battery of a child under 13.
Pat Herrity, the lone Republican on the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors, said the county’s sanctuary status codified under its Trust Policy is at the root of leniency toward immigrants.
“It’s unfortunate it’s taking these incidents to have people wake up to … the impact of not just illegal immigration but also policies like the Trust Policy, where we don’t enable law enforcement to do their job and keep our citizens safe,” he said.
In Prince George’s County, ICE said authorities last year defied a detainer request and released Ariel Isaac Florentino-Galeas, a Honduran man who had stolen a vehicle with a toddler in it. He was defying an immigration judge’s deportation order.
Prosecutors charged Florentino with kidnapping a child, reckless endangerment and theft but accepted a plea deal for convictions of theft and false imprisonment. The plea deal charges didn’t meet the county’s threshold for notifying ICE.
Ms. Ivey said the case was more reflective of the state’s attorney’s charging decisions than the county’s protections for illegal immigrants.
In that instance, ICE said, deportation officers were prepared and waited outside the courthouse to nab Florentino and foil his release.
• Matt Delaney can be reached at mdelaney@washingtontimes.com.
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.
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