Former acting Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Director Tom Homan hammered liberal sanctuary city policies that allowed an illegal alien now accused of attempted murder to evade authorities.
The lawbreaker, Osmani Garces-Ortiz, was arrested in October in Arapahoe County, Colo. on trespassing and drug charges.
ICE had a detainer on the suspect, but the sheriff’s office ignored it due to a policy of not holding the criminal unless a warrant is issued. He was released just four days after the detainer was secured.
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Garces-Ortiz was arrested less than one month after that, involved in a stabbing and charged with attempted murder, assault and violation of a bail bond. (RELATED: CNN Profiled an Illegal Facing Deportation – He’s Now Accused of Killing a Father of Five)
Homan appeared on “Fox & Friends: Weekend” to address the situation in Colorado, slamming the sheriff and his department for seemingly caring more about an illegal alien than the safety and rights of the county’s citizens.
“Sanctuary city policies [are] just ridiculous,” Homan declared. “Here’s a person who was in the custody of local officials because he was arrested for a crime, so they chose to lock him up and put him in a jail cell, and ICE notified them: ‘We want him before you release him.’ And, it didn’t happen. They didn’t honor a detainer.”
He then revealed that the decision to release was a question of politics, not legality.
“I’ve read the story. They were saying, ‘Well, there’s a legal issue.’ There is no legal issue,” Homan insisted. “The detainer’s honored by most law enforcement agencies across the country. This is a political decision – not a legal decision.” (RELATED: Trump’s Immigration Czar Pick Rips Into Sanctuary Cities: ‘Un-American’)
Criminal History OK with Sanctuary Sheriff
The law prohibiting law enforcement officials from holding individuals based only on requests from ICE was signed by Colorado Democrat Governor Jared Polis in May.
Illegal alien advocates were thrilled. Literally.
“It is thrilling. We don’t have words to express what this feels (like),” Maria Mercedes Garcia of the Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition, said.
We’d imagine the stabbing victim might have a different view on things.
ICE slammed the legislation, however.
“Aliens convicted of serious crimes – sex assault on a child, driving under the influence, and other crimes – now must be released to the streets without notifying ICE so they can re-offend in Colorado’s local communities or elsewhere,” they wrote in a statement.
In other words – an illegal escaping the grip of ICE, with a criminal history, predictably committed a far more egregious crime because he knew he wasn’t bound by laws in a sanctuary county.
In 2015, Garces-Ortiz was denied permanent residence in America due to his criminal background. Colorado seems to have no issue with that violent criminal record and what it may mean for legal residents.
Cross posted at the Mental Recession
