'Sanctuary County' Rips Trump, 'Neo-Nazi Sympathizers' After 7 Illegals Arrested for Alleged Sex Crimes
Montgomery County, Maryland, has been in the news lately, and it’s not because the county fair has somehow managed to deliver a deep-fried stick of Crisco.
Instead, seven illegal immigrants have been arrested since July 25 — the most recent being a Honduran national, who had already been deported once in April 2017 according to KABC-TV, and is now accused of sexually assaulting his own stepdaughter.
The bad press was compounded by the fact that Montgomery County took steps toward being a sanctuary locale during the same period, with County Executive Marc Elrich signing an order that limited the county’s cooperation with Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The executive order states “enforcing federal immigration law is solely the responsibility of the federal government” and Mongomery County’s “limited community resources” should not be used to enforce those laws. It further states that “immigration detainers, that are not accompanied by judicial warrants, are civil detainers for which the federal government bears sole responsibility.”
Among other things, one of the accused illegal immigrants being charged with the alleged sex crimes was also let out on bail even though ICE had a detainer on him. Rodrigo Castro-Montejo, 25, was released even though he’s a Salvadorian national living in the country illegally, according to The Daily Caller.
Elrich has gotten a lot of flak over this, including from the White House:
Last month, Montgomery County Executive Marc Elrich ordered the county’s agencies not to cooperate with ICE—and protect criminals instead.
Since July 25, 7 illegal aliens protected by the “sanctuary” county have been arrested for rape and sexual assaults. https://t.co/HuFyJqXVdn
— The White House (@WhiteHouse) September 4, 2019
So, what was the county’s response?
“Montgomery County is committed to building and maintaining a safe and inclusive community for our residents. Understanding, tolerance, and respect are hallmarks of Montgomery County. Social justice for all is what we strive to achieve in our County,” the Thursday statement began, according to Montgomery County Media.
The statement went on to affirm that sexual assaults are “despicable acts of violence and aggression” but noted that they “occur across all cultures and communities.”
They furthermore noted that the alleged crimes “that have occurred in Montgomery County are horrendously vile acts, and the alleged perpetrators of these crimes are currently going through the legal process and will receive their judgements in court.”
Well, I could have told you all this. What I couldn’t have told you was this next paragraph, apparently directed at the fact that Republicans and news outlets like Fox News have picked up the story.
“There has been a lot inaccurate information [sic] spread by the White House, President Trump, Acting USCIS Director Ken Cuccinelli, local and national conservative news outlets and neo-Nazi sympathizers regarding our criminal justice system and its process,” the statement read.
Gotta throw the Nazis in there, just in case the point wasn’t as glaring as the grammatical error they made while arguing it.
“These individuals and organizations should be ashamed for spreading false information seeking to establish a baseless, illogical and xenophobic connection between a person’s failure to obtain legal status and their propensity to commit a sex crime,” the statement continued.
Face, meet palm.
There aren’t, mind you, any examples of this “inaccurate information” (this might have been important) or, most crucially, evidence that “neo-Nazi sympathizers” — so casually lumped in with this group of people — were specifically targeting Montgomery County with the aforementioned “inaccurate information.”
Furthermore, let’s be clear: This wasn’t meant to demonstrate that there was “a baseless, illogical and xenophobic connection between a person’s failure to obtain legal status and their propensity to commit a sex crime.”
Instead, what this was meant to demonstrate was that maybe — and this is just spitballing here — if you have an uptick in alleged sex crimes being committed by illegal immigrants and, in the midst of this uptick, you sign a sanctuary county declaration and refuse to honor an ICE detainer on one of the suspects, you’re putting political doctrine ahead of public safety.
It’s been said before, it should be said again: The number of crimes committed by illegal immigrants, ideally, ought to be zero. That’s because they’re not in this country legally and shouldn’t be here.
That being impossible to enforce, heeding ICE detainers might not be the worst idea. Perhaps not letting those with ICE detainers out on bond might not be a bad idea, either. In fact, I can think of plenty of non-xenophobic problems with this whole mess.
But that’s just me. It’s good to know that Elrich and the rest of Montgomery County’s people have this on lockdown.
Sure, they may be a sanctuary county with a serious issue — both in terms of crime and PR — on their hands.
However, they know what’s important: Calling out “neo-Nazi sympathizers” that have apparently jumped on this whole thing, all without any evidence to back it up.
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