Politicians in Montgomery County, Maryland promised citizens that they would work with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, yet their police force has not been responsibly cooperating with the agency when they release criminal illegal aliens, a watchdog group reported.
Immigration Reform Law Institute gathered data on immigration detainer requests from the county for about eight months, Nov. 1, 2019, to June 5, 2020.
IRLI found that the county is notifying ICE only a few hours before criminal illegal aliens are released or not alerting immigration officials at all.
The result is that ICE agents do not have time to prepare to arrest the offenders, and so they move back into Maryland communities where they oftentimes re-offend.
“Montgomery County claims to be cooperating with ICE, but the implementation of this policy is a joke,” said Dale L. Wilcox, executive director of general counsel of IRLI.
“The data suggest a very cynical attempt to claim cooperation while doing the bare minimum to uphold it,” he said.
During the 8-month period, Montgomery County released 20 criminal illegal aliens.
The most glaring example of bad-faith, bare-minimum cooperation involved an illegal alien who was charged with 2nd-degree rape and sex-abuse.
The Montgomery County Department of Correction and Rehabilitation contacted ICE about the illegal alien’s release at 7:25 p.m. on March 26, and then released the criminal 28 minutes later.
There were 84 criminal illegal aliens for whom ICE sent detainers within the eight-month span.
The DOCR said 56 of these detainer requests were valid.
For eight of the valid detainer requests, the DOCR notified ICE less than four hours before the illegal alien’s scheduled release time.
The Department of Correction and Rehabilitation released three criminals without giving any notice to ICE agents, but this was not the fault of the county, since they were released at court.
Montgomery County had a non-cooperation policy with federal immigration officers prior to this limited cooperation.
