‘Our preference is that you honor a detainer, but if you’re not, simply notify us when you’re releasing an individual…’
(Ben Sellers, Liberty Headlines) When Garry McFadden, a retired homicide detective and reality television star, ran last year for sheriff of Mecklenburg County—encompassing the greater Charlotte region in North Carolina—he made his opposition to federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement a central part of his campaign.
Now, it seems, a few months into his term, the chickens have come home to roost.
Luis Pineda–Ancheta, a 37-year-old Honduran national, was arrested last week at an apartment complex in south Charlotte after a nine-hour standoff in which a SWAT unit was called, WBTV reported.
Pineda–Ancheta barricaded himself in the apartment while being served multiple warrants on domestic violence charges including assault by strangulation, kidnapping, assault on a female, communicating threats and violation of a domestic violence protective order.
He also had been released from jail last week, despite having been subject to an ICE detainer request.
Now, even sympathetic local media, like The Charlotte Observer appear to be turning on McFadden, who halted cooperation with ICE immediately upon taking office in November.
“When law enforcement agencies fail to honor immigration detainers and release serious criminal offenders onto the streets, it undermines ICE’s ability to protect public safety and carry out its mission,” Sean Gallagher, who oversees ICE’s operations in Georgia and the Carolinas, told The Observer.
Following the debacle, the newspaper’s website featured a video with ICE spokesman Bryan Cox making his case as to why cooperation between local law-enforcement and the agency is necessary.
“If for whatever reason an individual jurisdiction makes the decision that they are not gonna honor a detainer, OK,” Cox said.
“Our preference is that you honor a detainer, but if you’re not, simply notify us when you’re releasing an individual. … Don’t hold them one minute longer than you otherwise would, but just call ICE,” he said.
Officials have, ironically, made clear that the unintended consequence of local police refusing to cooperate will be a greater presence of the federal authorities within their jurisdiction
Pineda–Ancheta received the protective order on May 7, but he was arrested on May 15 for assaulting the female companion and released a day later. He allegedly committed another domestic assault against the woman on May 21.
Last week, two Salvadoran MS-13 gang members were arrested after a 14-year-old-girl in Maryland was discovered dead in a creek. The two alleged killers had been jailed on several felony counts last year, for which ICE submitted a detainer request that was ignored.