Buried under last week's full-press coverage of the Republican National Convention was a report from FOX45, the local Baltimore Fox affiliate, headlined “Baltimore County judges often give light sentences to illegal immigrant sex offenders”. The two key takeaways from that report are: (1) a disproportionate number of defendants charged with child-sex offenses in the Maryland suburb are “illegal immigrants from Central American countries”; and (2) judges there are issuing them ridiculously light sentences. Still, the report raises more questions than answers.
“Nearly 10%” of Child Sex Cases Involved Illegal Immigrants from Central America. With respect to the initial issue, the second paragraph of that article explains:
Public records show that Baltimore County State’s Attorney Scott Shellenberger’s office filed 99 child sex crime cases between January 1, 2023, and May 31, 2024. Nearly 10% of the child sex cases in Baltimore County, involving nine defendants over a 17-month period, involved illegal immigrants from Central American countries.
I’m very familiar with Baltimore County, having been born there and having worked in the INS Baltimore office. It’s not exactly a popular destination for illegal aliens from Central America.
According to the Census Bureau, just 7.2 percent of the county’s population of nearly 855,000 people are “Latino or Hispanic”, and just 4 percent speak Spanish at home. By contrast, 4.5 percent speak some “other Indo-European language” aside from English or Spanish.
It’s a safe bet that most of those Spanish-speaking “Latino or Hispanic” residents of Baltimore County are recent lawful immigrants with family who brought them to the area or who came there to work for one of the local medical institutions or in other businesses.
There’s no formal accounting of “illegal immigrants” in a “progressive” state that actively attempts to elide distinctions between lawful and unlawful immigration, of course, but I’d be surprised if more than 1 percent of the population in Baltimore County are aliens here illegally.
Which raises the question of why such a large number of defendants charged with among the most heinous of crimes in the county are not only immigrants but also ones here unlawfully from such a specific region.
I’d say this statistic undermines popular media claims of the sort my colleague Todd Bensman recently examined, which “point to ‘studies’ that compare crime rates for illegal aliens to those for U.S. citizens and conclude that Americans commit as much or more crime than the illegal immigrants” (plainly the opposite is the case in this instance), but honestly I have no idea why there is such a discrepancy.
And while the FOX45 report highlights this incongruity between populations in the same area, it does nothing to explain it.
“Baltimore County Judges Often Give Light Sentences to Illegal Immigrant Sex Offenders”. The main focus of that article is on the disparities between the sentences judges in the county imposed during a recent 17-month period on illegal immigrants from Central America on the one hand and African-American offenders on the other.
One of those aliens, Luis Portillo-Henriquez, was first arrested for DUI in October 2009 (for which he received probation before judgment) and then was arrested again for driving on a suspended license in January 2017. It does not appear he was placed into removal proceedings after either arrest.
He was arrested a second time for DUI in September 2021 but failed to appear in court and remained at large until he was arrested, yet again, for driving on a suspended license. While he received a year in jail for one or both of those offenses, that sentence was suspended and, once more, it does not appear that ICE got involved in his case.
At some point thereafter, however, Portillo-Henriquez was convicted for “raping a 14-year-old juvenile that was living in his Baltimore County house. Court records show the incidents happened for months when the girl’s mother was not at home.”
For that offense he was sentenced to 25 years in prison, but despite his already checkered criminal record and the serious nature of the crime, the judge reduced that sentence to 18 months. He’s currently in ICE custody.
A second alien, Arles Efrain Avila, entered illegally and was deported by ICE to Honduras in 2011.
He reentered illegally, and in January 2023, was arrested for “multiple counts of child sex crimes”. Notwithstanding either that offense or his immigration history, the judge “accepted and imposed a five-year probation sentence”.
He was removed yet again by ICE in January 2024 after his prior order of removal was reinstated, but FOX45 dryly notes: “It is unclear if he is back in the country.”
Jose Mejia, also here illegally, was arrested in June 2023 on “multiple counts of child sex crimes in Baltimore County”. He received five years’ supervised probation for lesser charges, and ominously the outlet reports: “Mejia’s immigration records show he remains in the country.”
Similarly, Miguel Flores-Avalos was arrested in the county on multiple counts of child sex crimes, and he, too, received a 25-year sentence (for “sex abuse minor”), with all but 18 months suspended. He’s still in the county lock-up and subject to an ICE detainer.
Elias Ramos-Gutierrez, who was ordered removed in August 2021, was charged with various offenses, including “rape second degree” and “sex abuse of a minor”, but those charges are currently on the court’s “stet” docket, which means that they are not being actively prosecuted.
No explanation is offered for such lenient treatment, and it’s unclear whether ICE is involved in his case or has attempted to execute the removal order.
Other FOX45 documents describe the case of another illegal entrant, Edmundo Acosta, who was arrested and charged in February 2023 with various sexual-related offenses. He pled down to assault in the second degree, for which he received probation before judgment. There’s no indication of ICE involvement in his case.
Those documents also detail the case of Raul Calderon-Interiano, who entered in June 2014 as an unaccompanied alien child. He was ordered removed in October 2015, but apparently never left.
He was arrested in January 2023 for two counts of sex abuse of a minor and other offenses, but was convicted in April 2024 for a fourth-degree sexual offense and assault in the second degree. He received five years in prison (all suspended) followed by five years’ probation.
ICE arrested him at his residence in May 2024, and he remains in the agency’s custody.
“Several Cases Involving African American Defendants Resulted in Harsher Sentences”. FOX45 contrasts the court’s handling of those child sex offense cases with five others in the 17-month period it examined, all involving Black defendants.
Three of those defendants received four years or more in prison, while two others received sentences of 12 years or more. That’s quite a difference compared to the sentences imposed in the cases above.
“I Am Appalled and Angered”. In preparing the piece, the outlet contacted the state’s attorney (who is looking into the cases and comparing FOX45’s findings with “internal data”), as well as various elected officials.
Two Republican state delegates issued a joint statement in which they explained: “We are appalled by the shocking data point showing that black offenders are getting stiffer penalties than others for sex crimes. ... The soft-on-crime laws and judiciary are dangerous and must be changed.”
Democratic U.S. Rep. Kweisi Mfume, however, didn’t hold back in voicing his displeasure in response to the report, stating: “I am appalled and angered that any child might be subjected to sexual abuse. ... I have no sympathy for persons who are convicted of such crimes — whether they are undocumented migrants or American citizens.”
“One Such Factor”. Personally, I agree with Mfume (a former national president of the NAACP and a well-respected figure in Baltimore) as well as with the two GOP state delegates, but responses don’t explain the sentencing disparities FOX45 identified.
The outlet also contacted the public information officer for the Maryland courts, however, and his response offers some clues:
While we cannot comment on individual cases, judges base their decisions on many different factors that are often unique to each case . ... One such factor may be the understanding that an individual who is subject to an ICE or other federal detainer will be taken into custody by ICE or another federal agency immediately upon the end of whatever state sentence is imposed.
It's not uncommon for state prosecutors and courts to consider the likelihood a defendant will be immediately deported in the charging and sentencing process. It saves incarceration costs and aliens who are removed won’t be able to reoffend in the community anytime soon.
That said, I have two issues with such considerations in these cases.
First, the offenses in question are among the most serious in the criminal-justice system. Like Mfume, I’m also appalled when any child is subjected to sexual abuse, but more importantly stern sentences for such crimes send a message to the community that child-sex offenses are serious and will be dealt with harshly.
Second, given the ongoing crisis at the Southwest border, there’s no guarantee that aliens who are child sex offenders and who receive lenient sentences with the understanding that they will be removed by ICE won’t return illegally — and worse, won’t return illegally and then reoffend.
CBP’s press shop regularly reports on aliens apprehended by Border Patrol agents who have either child sex-offense convictions or who are wanted for such offenses. Those are just the criminals they catch, however, and illegal reentrants with such convictions generally don’t want to be caught.
The Congressional Budget Office estimates that in FY 2023 alone, 860,000 illegal migrants evaded apprehension and successfully made their way into the interior. There’s no way of knowing how many of those “got-aways” had criminal records, let alone what crimes they may have been convicted for.
Kudos to FOX45 for casting light on the fact that illegal immigrants from Central America in one Maryland suburb are being charged with a disproportionate number of child sex offenses, and on the comparatively lenient sentences those migrants are receiving. The bigger questions are why those crimes are occurring, and why the judges are taking it easier on those alien offenders. Neither’s likely to be answered quickly.