Santa Rosa, Calif. thought it knew better. Now it knows better.
The sanctuary city in California refused to cooperate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials after they expressed an interest in an illegal alien Santa Rosa police had in custody. Instead, the city released the man, 38-year-old Nery Israel Estrada-Margos. Two weeks later he murdered his girlfriend.
According to The Press-Democrat:
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Estrada-Margos … turned himself in at the Santa Rosa police station just before 7 a.m. Friday, telling authorities that he had beaten his girlfriend after an argument and feared she might be dead, police said.
Santa Rosa police officers went to the Russell Avenue apartment that Estrada-Margos shared with the victim, Veronica Cabrera Ramirez, 42, and found her body.
Estrada-Margos was booked in Sonoma County Jail on murder charges Friday. An autopsy for Cabrera Ramirez is scheduled today by the Sonoma County Coroner’s Office.
Estrada-Margos had a history of domestic violence. In fact, he was arrested Aug. 2 for felony domestic battery against the woman he ultimately killed.
After he was fingerprinted and booked in Sonoma County Jail, Immigration and Customs Enforcement contacted jail officials and asked to be notified when he was released.
The Sheriff’s Office maintains that it did contact ICE the morning of Aug. 3 and revealed that Estrada-Margos had posted bail but that federal agents failed to come to the jail to pick him up. The office further claims that ICE agents retrieve “only a small percentage of inmates released.”
Yet, according to the Press-Democrat:
The Sheriff’s Office has faced significant scrutiny over its cooperation with ICE at the county jail. The Independent Office of Law Enforcement Review and Outreach and county supervisors have pressed the Sheriff’s Office to limit its response to notification requests from ICE.
Starting Friday, the same day as the homicide in Santa Rosa, interim Sheriff Rob Giordano changed his office’s policy on interactions with ICE at the jail.
It’s the right move, but it comes too late for Estrada-Margos’s victim.
