(Headline USA) Immigration and Customs Enforcement blasted the sanctuary city policies of Washington, D.C. as the reason an illegal immigrant was able to vandalize a local building with pro-Nazi Swastikas last week.
ICE officials told the Washington Examiner that they did not try to detain Geraldo Pando, a repeat criminal offender who has been deported four times already, after he defaced Union Station because D.C. law enforcement is not allowed to cooperate with them.
“ICE has not issued a detainer on Pando because the District of Columbia is a non-cooperative jurisdiction and the Washington D.C. jail is barred from honoring ICE detainers due to a federal District Court ruling, and city ordinance,” ICE said in an email.
The D.C. City Council passed a “sanctuary city” policy that bars police and jail personnel from keeping an illegal immigrant in custody so federal law enforcement can transfer him into its custody. In other words, even if ICE had issued a detainer for Pando, it more than likely would have been rejected.
Pando, 34, was arrested on Jan. 28 for defacing public property by drawing the Nazi symbol all over the exterior walls of the train station, which is just blocks from the U.S Capitol building.
ICE confirmed this week that it has deported Pando four times in the past 16 years.
“He was first encountered by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in Aurora, Colorado, following a May 11, 2006 local arrest. Pando has been removed from the United States on four prior occasions (once each in 2006, 2007, 2014, and 2017),” an ICE spokesman said in a statement.
Before he was arrested last week for vandalizing Union Station, Pando was also arrested the week prior for vandalizing the U.S. Capitol Police headquarters. Capitol Police released him because federal law enforcement did not try to transfer him to federal custody.
