Policies Have Consequences

Just the News posted an article yesterday about one consequence of the sanctuary policies of California.

The article reports:

The recent arrest of a criminal alien on two murder charges came after multiple instances in which Immigration and Customs and Enforcement had lodged immigration detainers only to see him released by California authorities, officials said.

“The alleged perpetrator, Fernando De Jesus Lopez-Garcia, is a repeat immigration offender with a significant criminal history spanning back nearly 15 years that includes convictions for battery of a spouse, assault with a deadly weapon, inflicting corporal injury on a spouse, battery of an officer, and vandalism,” ICE said in a press release Wednesday. 

ICE recently lodged a detainer on Monday following the arrest Sunday “for two counts of murder, three counts of attempted murder, battery on a spouse or cohabitant and violation of a protective order,” according to ICE. 

The article notes:

“Our deepest condolences go out the victims and their families in this case,” San Francisco ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations Field Office Director David Jennings said. “Here we have catastrophic proof of the abject failure of California’s sanctuary policies. The only person this policy protected was a criminal; permitting him to reoffend over and over again. Had those immigration detainers been honored, or had ICE been notified on any of the other multiple occasions he was arrested and released from local jails, we would have taken him into custody. Regrettably, politics continues to prevail over public safety, the detainers were ignored, and De Jesus Lopez-Garcia was released to the street.”

The press release noted that ICE frequently does not know that a criminal alien is in custody before that alien gets released.

Not every person who breaks the law to enter this country is a criminal. However, some are. Any person who breaks the law needs to be kept in jail–regardless of their immigration status. Keeping this man in jail would have saved lives.