On September 12, 2018 the Department of Homeland Security issued a press release, ICE arrests 16 during 2-day Operation SOAR in the New York City metropolitan area.<

Here is an excerpt from that press release:

In years past, most of these individuals would have been turned over to ICE by local authorities upon their release from jail based on ICE detainers. Now that many sanctuary cities, including New York City, do not honor ICE detainers, these individuals, who often have significant criminal histories, are released onto the street, presenting a potential public safety threat.

“Many of those arrested in this operation had been found guilty of inappropriate sexual behavior against a minor,” said Thomas R. Decker, field office director for ERO New York. “Our communities are safer, our children are safer, from the efforts of the men and women of ICE. We have removed them from our city’s streets and we will seek to remove them from the United States.”

Arrests include:

• In the Bronx, a 53 year-old, Mexican national, released from NYPD custody with an active detainer, who has convictions for criminal possession of a loaded firearm; criminal possession of a weapon: defaced for concealment; and sexual misconduct: male has intercourse with a female without her consent;
• In Manhattan, a 42 year-old previously removed Salvadoran national, who has a conviction for sexual abuse of a child less than 11 years of age;
• In Maspeth, a 39 year-old Dominican national, who has a conviction for sexual abuse, and is a registered sexual offender;
• In Wyandanch, a 32 year-old Guatemalan national, who has a conviction for course of sexual conduct against a child less than 13 years of age;
• In Huntington Station, a 40 year-old previously removed Salvadoran national, who has a conviction for rape, and who has failed to register as a sexual offender;
• In Deer Park, a 54 year-old Italian national, who has a conviction for possession of sexual performance by child less than 16 years of age;
• In the Bronx, a 42 year-old Ghanaian national, who has a conviction for sexual contact with an individual greater than 17 incapable of giving consent;

Criminal histories of those arrested during the operation are as follows: Acting in Manner Injure Child, Assault, Attempted Assault, Attempted Rape 1st: Forcible Compulsion, Course of Sexual Conduct Against a Child Criminal Possession of a Loaded Firearm, Criminal Possession of a Weapon, Disorderly Conduct, Forcible Touching, Harassment, Possession of Sexual Performance; Sexual Abuse 1st , Sexual Abuse 2nd, Sexual Contact, Sexual Misconduct, and Unlawful Surveillance.

As the press release noted, and as I have noted in previous articles and commentaries, when criminals complete their prison sentences and are put back on the street, all too often the results are horrific with more innocent people falling victim to these criminals.

For all of the efforts made to  alter the criminal behavior of criminals, the problem of recidivism is pervasive.  Many jails are optimistically referred to as “Correctional Facilities” but tragically all too often the attempts at “correction” fail, frequently with catastrophic results.

One of the best and most effective ways of dealing with the problem of recidivism where alien criminals are concerned, is to deport aliens who have been convicted of committing crimes.  Our immigration laws provide for this remedy, yet the mayors of so-called “Sanctuary Cities” obstruct the federal government’s efforts to enforce immigration laws.

Law enforcement field operations, particularly those that result in arrests are inherently dangerous for all involved.  This includes innocent bystanders who may be injured as the subject of the arrest attempts to flee or violently resist arrest.

When aliens are incarcerated, it is a simple matter to transfer custody of the alien from the prison to ICE agents in the secure and controlled environment of a prison.  Aliens who are incarcerated are certainly not armed.  From all perspectives, transferring custody is safe and time-efficient in this ideal setting.

Yet mayors of Sanctuary Cities are eager to create the illusion that they are being “compassionate” by obstructing ICE agents, whom New York’s Governor Cuomo described as “thugs” from carrying out their sworn duties to protect national security and public safety.

In reality, Sanctuary Cities Endanger – National Security and Public Safety.

It is truly mind-boggling to imagine anyone believing that permitting aliens back on the street, even if they are registered sex offenders, or have been convicted of committing sex crimes, out of a desire to be “compassionate.”

It is beyond comprehension that New York City would refuse to cooperate with ICE to enable an alien from Mexico who had been convicted of carrying a defaced firearm who had been convicted of apparently raping a woman- perhaps at gun point, while New York City boasts that it has the toughest gun laws in the nation.

New York’s Mayor de Blasio is apparently okay with turning loose sex offender aliens who could be deported, even when such aliens illegally possess firearms, even firearms that are defaced (had their serial numbers removed) to make tracing those guns difficult or impossible.

Every violent felon who has been released and remains at large should be thought of as a “ticking time-bomb” who may, at any time, “go off.”

Yet the sympathies of the mayors of “Sanctuary Cities” and the Governors of “Sanctuary States” are clearly with the criminals and not with their potential victims, even when the criminal in question has a demonstrated proclivity to sexually abuse young children.

For all of the public breast-beating these politicians engage in about the separation of illegal alien children from their illegal alien parents, these same politicians, in the name of “compassion,” gleefully shield alien predators, who rape children loose in their “Sanctuary Cities.”

For all of the efforts to take guns away from Americans these same mayors turn illegal aliens, who have committed firearms-related crimes, loose in their towns and cities rather than have ICE take those violent criminals into custody.

Furthermore, by making it clear that criminal aliens will be actively shielded by local law enforcement from detection and arrest by ICE agents, Sanctuary Cities become extremely attractive “Magnet Cities” that attract transnational criminals, international terrorists and fugitives.

Time and again we have seen the publicized cases where criminal aliens who had been deported repeatedly returned to the United States to live and ply their criminal trades in Sanctuary Cities where they knew that they would be far less likely to be arrested by ICE for having illegally returned to the United States.

However for every such highly-publicized case like the case of Kate Steinle, who was killed by an illegal alien who had been previously deported from the United States numerous times, only to illegally reenter the United States, there are many, many more victims that the media does not report on.

This was the underlying them of my article, Many More Victims Of the Immigration Crisis Than Kate Steinle.

In the early 1980’s I approached then-senator Al D’Amato with the idea of amending the immigration law where the crime of reenter after deportation was concerned.  At the time no considering was given to whether or not an alien who had been previously deported and then reentered the Untied States without permission had a criminal history.  Any alien who illegally reentered the United States, without permission, faced a maximum of 2 years in prison.

Because of limited resources and the relatively paltry penalty for the crime, it was almost impossible to get the U.S. Attorneys to prosecute aliens for that crime.  This meant that there was no deterrence.  Aliens who had been deported from the United States were unlikely to be punished for illegally reentering the United States.  At that time that crime was essentially a “punishmeantless” crime.

I suggested to Senator D’Amato that while two years might be a fitting punishment for aliens who had no criminal histories who had been deported and illegally reentered the United States, aliens who had convictions for serious crimes (aggravated felonies) should face a maximum of 20 years in federal prison.

My efforts were backed up by some of my colleagues at the INS along with Walter Connery who had been the head of the Investigations Branch for the INS in New York and was previously the Deputy Inspector for Internal Affairs for the NYPD before he retired and joined the INS.

Senator D’Amato succeeded in changing the law so that today such aliens face a maximum of 20 years in prison.  That section of law is 8 U.S. Code § 1326(b).

In point of fact, today this felony is the most frequently prosecuted federal felony.

However, when Sanctuary Cities shield felonious aliens from detection by ICE.  Consequently their presence goes undetected and their crimes go unpunished, leaving them free to commit more sociopathic crimes in towns and cities across our nation.  Frequently their victims are the members of the ethnic immigrant communities where these thugs live.

I never thought I was see the day when the victims of criminal aliens, including children, would be thought of as mere “speed bumps” by political “leaders” determined to leave America and Americans defenseless against international terrorists and transnational criminals costing thousands of Americans and others their lives.

We the People must demonstrate true compassion for the innocent victims of these criminal aliens by voting their political guardians out of office.

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in FrontPage Magazine. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.