Heather Curtis
WMAL.com
WASHINGTON – Montgomery County’s being criticized for letting an illegal immigrant go after he posted bond even though Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) had a detainer that should have kept him in jail for 48 hours.
“How come for 200 years we haven’t needed a judicial warrant for local officials to hold an alien for 48 hours until the feds can come and pick him up for removal? All of a sudden they’re claiming it’s like a criminal detention, when it’s not,” President of the Federation for American Immigration Reform Dan Stein tells Mornings on the Mall.
ICE issued a press release condemning the county for ignoring legally authorized detainers.
Montgomery County Executive Ike Leggett told the Larry O’Connor show the county honors detainers for people charged with felonies but not for those charged with less serious crimes.
19-year-old El Salvador citizen Mario Alvarado appeared in court May 3 on charges including car theft and carrying a dangerous weapon on school property. Police said he broke into a Rockville Police car April 29 and stole an AR-15 rifle and ammo from the car’s trunk. The next day police said Alvarado brought the weapon to Albert Einstein High School in a stolen car. A Montgomery County Police Department School Resource Officer saw Alvarado driving the stolen car on school property. The officer followed the car to an intersection of Norris Drive and Kenton Drive and stopped it. Alvarado pulled over, got out of the car and ran but later came back to the intersection and was arrested. Police found the stolen rifle in the car’s trunk.
Even though ICE filed an immigration detainer for Alvarado the day after he was arrested, a Montgomery County District Court judge set his bond at $2,000 and released him after he posted in on May 3.
Stein said Montgomery County and some other jurisdictions in Maryland have created a culture of disregard for immigration enforcement.
“I think we made a mistake in the interpretation of it, and I think things moved a little too quickly. It [Alvarado’s release] should not have happened,” Leggett said.
It didn’t take ICE long to track down Alvarado. He was arrested May 4. He’s being held at the Howard County Detention Center in Jessup.
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