A detainer lodged by U.S. federal immigration agents against a Salvadoran national who served over two decades in a California prison for killing a child was not honored, authorities said Monday.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) said in a news release that they filed a request with the California Department of Corrections in 2013 to hand over 44-year-old Carlos Morales-Ramirez upon his release so they could start deportation proceedings.
Despite the request, Morales-Ramirez was released onto the streets on Dec. 4, officials said.
The Salvadoran man was convicted in January 1998 by a superior court in Los Angeles for second-degree murder when he assaulted a child, causing great bodily injury and resulting in the child’s death.
Dave Marin, the director of ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) in Los Angeles, said federal immigration agents had to spend additional time and resources to relocate Morales-Ramirez and rearrest him because state officials didn’t honor the detainer.
“State sanctuary laws grant law enforcement officials the discretion to cooperate with immigration authorities in instances where serious or violent crimes have been committed; again, we are talking about the murder of a child,” Marin said, according to the release.
“Rather than working with our officers to ensure this convicted aggravated felon was safely handed over to ICE, he was released back into the community and our officers were forced to exhaust more time and resources relocating and rearresting him,” he added.
Morales-Ramirez was located again by Los Angeles officers and taken into custody on Dec. 10 during a targeted enforcement action. He currently remains in ICE custody and his departure proceedings will begin after the outcome of his hearing.
ICE said the failure of local officials in honoring immigration detainers undermines the department’s ability to maintain public safety and carry out its national security mission.
“California’s sanctuary policies continue to fail residents by allowing convicted criminals like Morales-Ramirez to walk free—state officials and advocates need to take a hard look at the reality, and potential consequences, of these misguided laws that leave potential victims wildly unprotected from very egregious criminal offenders,” Marin said.
The California Department of Corrections denied the allegations and told Fox News it could not find a record of Morales-Ramirez.
Sanctuary State
California officially became a sanctuary state in January 2019, meaning local and state law enforcement are restricted in cooperating with immigration agents, even within jails.
The U.S. state was the first to pass such sweeping legislation that shields illegal aliens from immigration enforcement.
Most sanctuary policies come under fire because they allow for criminal illegal aliens to be released into communities instead of being handed over to ICE for deportation proceedings.
In 2018, almost 10,000 criminal aliens who were released onto the streets nationwide—rather than being turned over to ICE—had committed another crime, ICE Deputy Director Tom Homan said.
“I think it’s terrible. I mean you’ve got the state of California that wants to put politics above public safety, ahead of officer safety,” Homan said during a Fox News interview in January 2019.
Nearly one quarter (more than 2 million) of the country’s estimated illegal alien population lives in California, according to 2019 data from the Public Policy Institute of California.
Epoch Times reporter Charlotte Cuthbertson contributed to this report.
