Murders Force Sanctuary Policy Challenge

Illegal immigrants with criminal histories had to commit four murders—including a high school honor student and an elderly woman—for officials in a Maryland county to finally admit there’s a serious problem with their sanctuary policy.

All of the murderers had been previously arrested and released by police in cities that offer illegal aliens sanctuary. At least two of them were freed by authorities in the affluent Maryland county of Montgomery, a notorious illegal alien sanctuary with a police department that has a don’t-ask-don’t-tell immigration policy.

The victims include a 14-year-old boy shot to death on a crowded public bus by a member of a famously violent gang, a popular waiter stabbed to death, a man viciously attacked with a metal bat and an elderly woman. All of the homicides were committed by illegal immigrants who had been arrested in the past and released rather than deported.

The most recent case, last month’s shooting of the teenage high school student, ignited a public outcry that evidently forced county officials to finally take a hard look at the sanctuary policy that has enabled so many illegal aliens to continue their crime sprees. 

The boy was gunned down by an illegal immigrant (Hector Hernandez) from El Salvador who also wounded two other teenagers. The known member of the MS-13 or Mara Salvatrucha gang had been arrested by Montgomery County Police a few weeks earlier for concealing a dangerous weapon and was released. It marked the second time in a year that the department freed an MS-13 member who went on to commit an atrocious crime.  

It took the boy’s ruthless death for a light to at least flicker in the collective heads of Montgomery County officials, who this week said they plan to take a “more proactive approach” to prevent the release of illegal immigrants suspected of serious crimes. One Democrat councilman who is a renowned immigrant advocate actually admitted that "we’re talking about the people who are clearly undesirable."