Senate Judiciary Committee Seeking Background on Illegal Status of Rockville Rape Suspects

Katie Pavlich | March 27, 2017 12:00 PM

Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley is seeking information from the Department of Homeland Security and Health and Human Services about illegal aliens Jose Montano and Henry Sanchez. Both have been charged as adults with the rape of a 14-year-old girl at Rockville High School in Maryland two weeks ago. A judge denied bond to the two men, 17 and 18 years old, after determining they would be a flight risk. From El Salvador and Guatemala, the suspects entered the United States illegally last year as unaccompanied minors.

"According to information released by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Montano and Sanchez Milian entered the U.S. illegally in 2016, and were detained by Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents in April 2016. Although agents gave the teens notices to appear (NTAs) in immigration court, no charges were filed because they were not considered priorities for enforcement. Both teens were later released and flown to Maryland to reunite with family," Grassley recently wrote in a letter to Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly.

"Upon arrival in Maryland, the two suspects, though much older than the victim and most other students in the class, enrolled as freshman at Rockville High School. Henry Sanchez Milian, a citizen of Guatemala, has had had at least one previous encounter with CBP. According to ICE, Sanchez Milian was stopped by a border patrol agent in Rio Grande Valley, Texas, in August 2016. The agent determined that Sanchez had illegally entered the U.S. from Mexico without proper documentation. He was detained for 12 days before being placed with the Health and Human Services’ Office of Refugee Resettlement, but ICE later relocated him to Maryland to join his father. Jose Montano, is an unaccompanied minor from El Salvador who entered the country illegally in April 2016," Grassley continued.