‘If ICE is complaining, then they should do their job better…’
(Claire Russel, Liberty Headlines) Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot continued to defend the city’s sanctuary policies, which prohibit law enforcement from working with federal immigration officials, even after an illegal immigrant previously deported was convicted of assaulting a 3-year-old girl.
The illegal immigrant, 34-year-old Christopher Puente, was being held in custody by Chicago police for a theft committed last summer.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement had put out a detainer for Puente, but instead of working with ICE, Chicago’s police department released Puente into the public.
A few months later, Puente was arrested, once again, for luring a 3-year-old girl into his restroom stall at a Chicago’s McDonald’s and assaulting her.
Puente admitted to the crime and described it as “wrong” and “a very bad thing,” according to assistant state attorney James Murphy. But ICE said in a statement that Puente’s horrible crime could have been prevented had Chicago law enforcement officials handed him over to immigration officials.
Instead of acknowledging her department’s failure, Lightfoot lashed out at ICE and claimed the federal agency wasn’t properly doing its job.
“If ICE is complaining, then they should do their job better,” she said, according to WLS-TV.
“They’re critical because we have said very clearly we are a welcoming city, a sanctuary city,” she continued. “Chicago Police Department will not cooperate with ICE on any immigration-related business.”
Lightfoot acknowledged that the lack of cooperation had impacted ICE’s ability to do its job. “But that’s exactly our intention,” she said. “We have to make sure our police department is seen as a legitimate force in all our communities.”
The Chicago Police Department also said in a statement that its “pledge to restrict ICE’s access to our information systems and our refusal to cooperate with ICE immigration enforcement measures has not changed.”