It's being reported that Luis Rodrigo Perez, an illegal alien from Mexico previously arrested in a New Jersey sanctuary county for domestic violence — and later released despite a detainer filed by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents — has now been arrested for a triple murder in Missouri (see here and here).
These stories are so tragic, so unnecessary, and so depressingly repeated. Time and again they debunk one or another of the absurd arguments made by sanctuary jurisdictions to justify their defiance of federal supremacy over immigration law enforcement and control matters.
For instance, in a recent posting, I noted that an alien in Oregon (also previously arrested, by the way, for domestic violence) was released by a county sheriff and some months later was arrested and charged for murdering his wife. So much for the argument that sanctuary laws protect immigrant communities. The dead spouse was, of course, a part of the immigrant community. As I noted:
Exactly who from immigrant communities is being put into the cages of police vehicles? Certainly not victims and witnesses. No, it's aliens who have been taken into custody for commission of crimes, and statistically it's a good bet that the victims of, and witnesses to, the crime(s) were other members of the immigrant community. So why would city, county, or state leaders think that it serves them well to send these criminals back to prey once again on those same immigrant communities? Isn't that where the trust of those communities is most likely to be quickly eroded? [Emphasis in original.]
At the time of that murder, Oregon voters were on the cusp of going to the polls to vote on, among other things, a ballot initiative to end the state's sanctuary law. Sadly, that initiative was defeated by a nearly 2:1 margin by Oregon's reliably progressive but shortsighted voters. (Readers may remember that Portland was the site of a "demonstration" in which protesters effectively held ICE employees hostage in their offices for several days while the city's police refused to intervene, and the mayor made outrageous noises of sympathy for these outlaw protesters.)
This brings me to another important point that merits repeating as long as necessary. When jurisdictions undertake to enact sanctuary policies, they disadvantage not only their own communities, but also other communities that have had no say-so in the matter. That's because, once released, an alien criminal prone to violence is free to drift from place to place committing mayhem until (hopefully) he arrives at a place where the police or sheriff's department does cooperate with ICE and, together, they can ensure that he is convicted, sentenced, and thereafter deported from the United States. But how many innocent victims suffer the consequences along the way? This is so self-evident that I don't know why the point isn't hammered home endlessly by law enforcement organizations that don't have myopic sanctuary laws and policies. They should be joining vociferously with ICE and the Justice Department in doing everything possible to deprive sanctuaries of federal enforcement grant funding and to see the laws and policies dismantled everywhere in the nation.
One final thought: As you probably know, the president has forced the resignation of Attorney General Jeff Sessions, the one cabinet member who most reliably worked to fulfill the president's claim that he is in favor of vigorous immigration enforcement. We haven't seen the same kind of vigor from any other cabinet officer, including Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen. It's being reported that former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie is in the running for that job.
Christie as governor never showed himself to be a strong proponent of immigration enforcement, and took no steps to ensure that cooperation with ICE would be strong at all levels of the state and its political subdivisions. This, despite the fact that Christie is no shrinking violet and has a reputation as a pugnacious and dogged fighter for causes he believes in. Apparently, cooperation with federal immigration authorities wasn't a part of that list.
Anybody see a problem here?