Sanctuary Jurisdictions Protect Nearly 12,000 Criminal Illegal Immigrants in 19 Months

The recent murder committed by a twice-deported illegal immigrant gangbanger in a Maryland sanctuary county makes the following information both enraging and unbelievable; nearly 12,000 illegal immigrants with criminal histories were protected from federal authorities by sanctuary jurisdictions in the U.S. during a 19-month period, according to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) figures obtained by the Washington D.C.-based Center for Immigration Studies (CIS).

A few weeks ago CIS published a map identifying about 300 jurisdictions that have official policies shielding illegal aliens from federal authorities. During a 19-month stretch from January 1, 2014, to September 30, 2015, more than 17,000 federal detainers were rejected by these sanctuary jurisdictions, CIS found. Around 11,800 of the detainers, or 68%, were issued for individuals with a prior criminal history. “According to ICE statistics, since the Obama administration implemented the new Priority Enforcement Program in July 2015 restricting ICE use of detainers, the number of rejected detainers has declined,” CIS writes in a report accompanying the map. “However, the number of detainers issued by ICE also has declined in 2016, so it is not clear if the new policies are a factor.”

The bottom line is that hundreds of local governments across the nation shield illegal immigrants from the feds, even when they have engaged in criminal activity. In some cases they go on to commit heinous crimes that receive widespread media attention. Judicial Watch has reported many of them and launched investigations, obtaining public records from the jurisdictions that protected the criminal aliens. Back in 2008 Judicial Watch obtained records from the San Francisco Sheriff’s Department—an agency long renowned for offering sanctuary—related to Edwin Ramos, an illegal alien from El Salvador who murdered three innocent American citizens. Ramos was a member of a famously violent street gang and had been convicted of two felonies as a juvenile (a gang-related assault on a bus passenger and the attempted robbery of a pregnant woman) yet he was allowed to remain in the country.

Judicial Watch also investigated the 2010 case of a drunken illegal alien who killed a nun in Virginia and we sued the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to obtain records. The Bolivian national, Carlos Montano, had a substantial criminal history but federal authorities released him on his own recognizance after two previous arrests. Virginia doesn’t have a statewide sanctuary policy, but Arlington and Chesterfield County do, according to the CIS database. Judicial Watch’s probe determined that Montano had a revoked license and had previously been arrested on drunk-driving charges when his car crossed a median and slammed into a vehicle carrying three nuns. The two survivors were critically injured. The number of serious crimes committed by illegal aliens who have benefitted from sanctuary policies is undoubtedly on the rise.

Just last summer a case in a small sanctuary town of 40,000 received global media attention over the gruesome nature of the crime. A Haitian illegal immigrant who had spent 17 years in prison for attempted murder, savagely stabbed a young woman in Norwich, Connecticut then stuffed her body in a closet. At least three deportation orders had been issued for the killer, Jean Jacques, dating back to 2002. Connecticut has long protected illegal immigrants with sanctuary policies and even offers them special drivers’ licenses, known as Drive Only. The state also gives illegal aliens discounted tuition at public colleges and universities and authorities work hard to restrict the feds from deporting illegal immigrants. In fact, despite President Obama’s amnesty and open-borders policies, Connecticut is always a step ahead when it comes to protecting illegal immigrants and granting them rights. Undoubtedly, this attracts a large population of undocumented aliens like the murderer in this case.

Last week an illegal immigrant member of the notoriously violent MS-13 street gang murdered a teenager in Gaithersburg, Maryland. The 28-year-old gangbanger from El Salvador, Oscar Delgado-Perez, had been deported twice in the last two years, according to a mainstream newspaper. Nevertheless Delgado-Perez was never removed and, along with two fellow gangbangers, he brutally stabbed an 18-year-old more than 40 times in a Gaithersburg park as the teen begged for his life. Gaithersburg is in Montgomery County, which proudly offers illegal aliens sanctuary. In fact, earlier this year Montgomery County officials publicly reassured illegal aliens that police would play no role in a federal government operation to deport recent undocumented aliens from El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Mexico.