An illegal alien from Guatemala was convicted of heinous sex crimes against a minor in Maryland, but a Baltimore County judge suspended the pedophile's six-year prison sentence, and the so-called "sanctuary city" jailing the Guatemalan freed him in disregard of a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detainment request.
Now, the deep-blue county is walking back its "sanctuary" policy following widespread backlash.
Last year, 25-year-old Raul Calderon-Interiano, a Guatemalan national living in the U.S. illegally, was arrested by the Baltimore County Police Department on January 23, 2023, and charged with sexual abuse of a minor (as a household/family member), attempted sexual abuse of a minor (as a household/family member), attempted sex offense in the third degree, sex offense in the third degree, and two counts of second-degree assault. The charging documents specified that Calderon-Interiano sexually abused a 13-year-old and a 14-year-old.
That day, Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) Baltimore lodged an immigration detainer against Calderon-Interiano with the Baltimore County Detention Center.
ICE issues immigration detainers to temporarily hold illegal aliens who have been arrested for committing crimes. Federal detainers ask local law enforcement agencies to notify ICE in advance before "removable" suspects are released and request that they be detained until ICE can assume custody. Detainers allow for an arrest to be made in a secure, controlled custodial setting — i.e. a direct transfer of custody — as opposed to hunting down an at-large illegal alien freely roaming the streets. The latter also expends "scarce" government resources, ICE explains.
On April 10, 2024, Calderon-Interiano was convicted of a fourth-degree sex offense (sexual contact) and assault in the second degree. He was sentenced to a total of six years in prison followed by five years of probation.
According to county records reviewed by Townhall, that same day, Judge Jan Marshall Alexander of the county's Circuit Court decided to suspend all of the convicted child sex offender's prison time, and the county jail was ordered to release him. However, the court order directed the Baltimore County Detention Center to "check for detainers" first. He was let out anyways, in spite of ICE's active detainer against him.
This is Raul Calderon-Interiano. He’s a convicted child s*x offender who’s in our country illegally.
— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) June 4, 2024
ICE requested to detain him but woke judge Jan Marshall Alexander decided to suspend his prison sentence and free him.
About 70% of detainers were ignored by Baltimore County in… pic.twitter.com/36b3ATEhG4
More than a month later, deportation officers from ERO Baltimore's Fugitive Operations Team apprehended the Tier 1 sex offender near his Baltimore residence on May 29. Calderon-Interiano will remain in ICE custody pending his removal from the U.S.
"Raul Calderon-Interiano was convicted of sex crimes against a local child and posed a significant threat to other Maryland children," ERO Baltimore's acting Field Office Director Matthew Elliston said in an ICE press release. "We will not tolerate the residents of our communities to be victimized by unlawfully present sex offenders. The women and men of ERO Baltimore will continue to prioritize the safety of our public by aggressively arresting and removing noncitizen predators from our neighborhoods."
U.S. Border Patrol (USBP) first encountered Calderon-Interiano as an unaccompanied minor near Laredo, Texas, on June 19, 2014, after he unlawfully entered the United States without being inspected, admitted, or paroled by a U.S. immigration official. USBP served Calderon-Interiano a notice to appear before a U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) immigration judge. Then, on June 22, 2014, he was transferred to the custody of the Office of Refugee Resettlement, which ultimately released Calderon-Interiano on November 8, 2014, and handed him over to "a sponsor" residing in Maryland. On Oct. 8, 2015, Calderon-Interiano was ordered to be removed from the United States and sent back to Guatemala in absentia.
Unfortunately, the Calderon-Interiano case is a common occurrence in Democrat-led Baltimore County, where letting illegal aliens go is a policy practiced regularly.
A whopping 70 percent of the ICE detainers were ignored by Baltimore County between October 2022 and September 2023, according to a FOX45 News investigation. That fiscal year, federal agents filed 81 detainers, of which only 24 were honored and the remaining 57 weren't.
Baltimore County authorities do not routinely detain illegal immigrants on behalf of federal immigration officials even if they are charged with committing crimes in the county, a FOX45 News investigation found.https://t.co/wRRfJRKEsb
— FOX Baltimore (@FOXBaltimore) June 1, 2024
The Baltimore Sun reported that the county has since modified its "sanctuary" policies in the wake of Calderon-Interiano's release.
"Following a productive meeting with the ERO Baltimore acting field officer director, Baltimore County and ERO officials agreed to adjustments to current county policies in order to best support this shared work, including making every effort to notify ICE officials 48 hours or more prior to an individual's release whenever possible," Baltimore County leadership announced in a press statement.
Like its neighboring counties, Baltimore County is a "sanctuary" jurisdiction, meaning authorities aren't allowed to keep an illegal alien incarcerated, even if they're criminally charged, on behalf of civil immigration officials. Furthermore, Baltimore County police are prohibited from arresting illegal aliens based solely on illegal immigration status.
In 2017, then-County Executive Kevin Kamenetz, a Democrat, signed an executive order establishing Baltimore County's "sanctuary" policies: "No Baltimore County Police Officer shall arrest, detain, or extend the stop or detention of an individual on the basis of a civil administrative warrant, a prior deportation order, any other document relating to a civil immigration violation, or an alleged violation of civil immigration laws."
When asked by FOX45 News about the county's current policies, a Baltimore County Police Department spokesperson pointed the Baltimore-based TV station to stipulations in the police force's field manual, which prohibits the agency from extending the detention of an individual "on the basis of an immigration warrant" or even the "suspicion of immigration violations."
A spokesperson for Baltimore County Executive Johnny Olszewski, who had affirmed that Kamenetz's order remained in effect countywide when he entered office, told FOX45 News: "Baltimore County remains committed to promoting public safety policies while also respecting the constitutional rights of individuals. Baltimore County has and continues to notify ICE when the National Criminal Identification Center shows a civil detainer and continues to hold individuals with a criminal warrant signed by [a] judge."
Appearing on FOX45 News, Olszewski, a Democratic congressional candidate going up against Republican Kimberly Klacik in the U.S. House race, said ICE had "every opportunity" to take Calderon-Interiano into custody while he was awaiting trial for 15 months.
"We follow the rules. We don't keep people beyond court-mandated [terms] and without a judicial warrant. The attorney general gave us guidance that said not having a judicially enforceable warrant or order to keep someone beyond their time or without probable cause is a reason to put local jurisdictions at [legal] risk," said Olszewski, doubling down on the old policy that directs county correctional officers to defy detainers and emphasizing that they're following the Maryland Office of the Attorney General's advisory.
(At the time of the 2017 executive order, then-Attorney General Brian Frosh issued an Immigration Guidance Memorandum advising local governments not to comply with federal instructions to detain a subject suspected of immigration violations past the release date.)
In response, Elliston, who runs ICE's removal operations in the Baltimore region, called Olszewski's remarks "a massive mischaracterization" and argued that the time a suspect spends behind bars pre-trial is irrelevant. ICE needs to be notified immediately post-conviction, Elliston added.
"At no point is ICE, or any law enforcement entity, going to go in the middle of court proceedings and take someone out of custody. We want them to get a criminal conviction,” Elliston said in a FOX45 News interview. "The problem is, once they've gotten their conviction, that's when Baltimore County didn't let us know, 'Hey, we're going to release this person.'"
Elliston said ICE detainers should be mandatory in Maryland, as they are in Florida, Texas, and Georgia. "I would like to see Maryland go down that same avenue, which would give county executives all the autonomy to say...'I am not at risk, the state has a law that we must honor detainers,'" he stated.
"To be clear, when you issue [a] detainer, it's not for a misdemeanor; it's for violent crimes?" a FOX45 News reporter asked Elliston.
"Right...we're only looking for the worst of the worst," Elliston replied.
"These are not people who are lawfully here. They don't have a big footprint. My officers are the best in the business at finding people who don't want to be found, but it's resource intensive," Elliston continued.
What could have been a one-hour, one-officer job turned into a team of six sent on a days-long manhunt, Elliston indicated.
"It's a lot of work and a lot of risk," said Elliston. "It keeps me up at night. The idea that someone like this could kill one of my officers, when all they had to do was pick them up from the jail."
"Sanctuary cities" all over the country, such as Baltimore County, have local laws, ordinances, and policies that shield illegal aliens from deportation and willfully obstruct federal immigration enforcement. This leads to deportable criminals being placed back on American streets, affording them the chance to commit more crimes in the community and beyond.
In December, ICE caught an MS-13 gang member convicted of killing a Maryland resident nearly five years after authorities in Prince George's County, a nearby "sanctuary" jurisdiction, set the convict free despite an ICE detainer previously put in place.
Prince George's County, a Democrat-led "sanctuary city," freed an MS-13 gang member—who was convicted of killing a Maryland resident—in defiance of ICE's detainment request. Let out of prison, the convicted killer roamed free for years on U.S. streets.https://t.co/brN2TqRrTM
— Mia Cathell (@MiaCathell) December 22, 2023
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