A string of high-profile crimes blamed on illegal immigrants hasn’t shaken D.C.-area leaders, who say they’re still comfortable with their sanctuary policies that limit cooperation with federal deportation authorities.
City and county officials say they think they’ve struck the right balance in working with Homeland Security on the most serious violent crimes while refusing to cooperate when it comes to illegal immigrants arrested for lower-level offenses.
And they pushed back against the narrative of a migrant-fueled crime spree, saying that’s not what they’re seeing in their communities.
“It sounds like coming up with something about undocumented citizens committing crimes is just something to start a fight,” Jolene Ivey, the chair of the Prince George’s County Council, told The Washington Times. Ms. Ivey said she’s 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 of the jurisdictions in the metropolitan area have some 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 only notify ICE of an impending release in cases where there are convictions 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 year 2024 have gone unanswered, as did 194 requests in the previous 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 as well.
Among the released, according to ICE, was Nilson Trejo-Granados, who faces murder charges in connection with a Feb. 8 shootout that claimed the life of a 2-year-old hit in the crossfire.
ICE said Montgomery County arrested Mr. Trejo-Granados twice last year and each time the agency placed a detainer request. Both times, Montgomery County released him without notifying ICE.
County Executive Marc Elrich told reporters the charges the migrant was arrested for didn’t meet the county’s threshold for cooperation.
But after a meeting with ICE, he said he would revisit the policy and add some more crimes to the cooperation list. He also said that for now, any county decision to decline to cooperate with an ICE detainer will first have to be approved by his office.
Mr. Elrich rejected the label of Montgomery County being a “sanctuary” for illegal immigrants, saying that 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.
But ICE has pushed back against that narrative, pointing out that the agency doesn’t engage in sweeps and that the detainees sought from local prisons and jails by definition have criminal entanglements, often with victims in the immigrant communities.
Mr. Mendelson, who has been a leading progressive voice on the council since taking office in 1998, was doubtful. He said innocent people have been “swept up” in past ICE investigations.
ICE has been highlighting local cases in which, according to the agency, criminals were released despite detainer requests over the last eight months.
They include Francis Torres Murcia, a Honduran man released by Fairfax County despite being 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 being 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 Fairfax County’s Board of Supervisors, said the county’s sanctuary status — which was codified under Fairfax’s “Trust Policy” — is at the root of the policy of leniency toward immigrant suspects.
“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’d stolen a vehicle with a toddler in it. He was also 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.