Horowitz: Federal court puts ICE in lockdown, keeps illegal alien sex offenders free

Who needs the “abolish ICE” movement when the courts are accomplishing the same outcome without any political reprisal?

At a time when Americans have been rebuffed by the court system to restore basic civil rights, including the right to worship, in light of the illogical lockdown (except if you’re rioting), the courts continue to grant standing to the worst criminal aliens to remain in the country and hamstring law enforcement. The latest right? Illegal aliens get to avoid being arrested at jailhouses and courthouses so that they can abscond from federal immigration officials.

Last week, U.S. District Judge Jed S. Rakoff ignored federal law and ruled that ICE cannot arrest any illegal alien at a New York state courthouse where the individual is a defendant or witness in a pending case. "Courthouse civil arrests are not lawful, because they contravene the common-law privilege ... that protects courts and litigants against these intimidating and disrupting intrusions," wrote the Clinton-appointed judge to the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York.

It now appears that the people who riot in the streets against law enforcement have allies in the court system who will rule based on personal animus against laws they don’t like rather than following them. Can you imagine a federal judge saying that local officials have the right to hide a federal gun felon from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) and that the federal agents could not arrest the gun felon at a courthouse when he is appearing in another criminal case?

If anything, ICE’s prerogative to arrest at any time and place is even stronger, because the arrest subjects are foreign nationals who have no inherent right to remain in the country under any circumstances. ICE is prudent enough to try to arrest them in controlled environments like police stations, rather than arresting them in communities. But with sanctuaries like New York that release them onto the streets, the last line of defense to ensure that illegal aliens being arrested for other crimes are not sent back into the communities is to apprehend them at the courthouses.

Yet, as we saw at the Supreme Court on Monday, the courts continue to smile upon neo-Confederate sanctuary cities. This is the equivalent of a federal judge not only siding with the Confederacy, but ruling that the U.S. government had no right to enforce federal law against foreign nationals in Confederate states. The courts are now part of the insurrection against our national sovereignty and laws duly passed by Congress.

This is the latest example of victims being turned into criminals and criminals being celebrated as heroes by our political and legal system. Not only are these people here illegally, but by definition, they are going to court for being involved in other crimes as well. It is now the desire of local governments and of federal judges to protect illegal aliens being charged with sex crimes. As the New York Times reported, one of the cases that prompted this lawsuit by New York’s attorney general was “a Uruguayan defendant” who was taken into custody by ICE “just minutes before a hearing on a proposed guilty plea that would have required him to serve more than three years in prison in a sexual and domestic violence case.”

In many blue states, not only are they against federal immigration agents, but now we see they are against local law enforcement and seek little or no prison time for all offenders. Thus, the courthouse is the last line of defense for ICE to ensure that at least other countries’ criminals don’t get a slap on the wrist and then get released into our communities.

Last July, for example, ICE was forced to arrest Fabian Alberto Zamora-Rodriguez, an illegal alien charged with multiple child sex offenses, at a courthouse in Astoria, Oregon, because local officials would not cooperate.

In Washington state, another sanctuary, an illegal alien who had at least 10 prior arrests in the Seattle area was picked up on murder charges. Julio Cruz-Velazquez, a citizen of Mexico who is in the United States illegally and is now charged with murdering a father of five as he lay asleep in his own home, had a rap sheet that included recent arrests for rape, domestic abuse, assault, burglary, drunk driving, and robbery. Each time, he was let back on the streets. The courthouses are the only place to nab these people before they post bail, especially in this era of criminal justice “reform.”

Remember when all these sanctuary cities claimed that ICE had no right to require them to cooperate with federal issues and use their police stations to enforce federal laws (only the ones they disagree with, of course)? Well, now, when the feds are forced to go it alone, the sanctuaries get a judge to say that the feds can’t enforce the law themselves either. They have essentially abolished ICE, which is why interior enforcement is way down, even compared to Obama’s second term.

This clown of a judge wants to discuss chilling effects of ICE arresting criminal aliens at courthouses? Perhaps he should look at the chilling effects of the sanctuaries he is illegally protecting.

We all remember the shocking case of Maria Fuertes, a 92-year-old well-known woman in Queens, New York, found lying dead in the street on January 6, murdered and raped. On January 10, NYPD announced the arrest of Reeaz Khan and charged him with sexually assaulting and then murdering Fuertes.

Who is Reeaz Khan? ICE issued a statement a few days later revealing that Khan is an illegal alien from Guyana who was arrested for assault and criminal possession of a weapon – just six weeks before the murder. ICE issued a detainer request, but the NYPD, in compliance with New York’s illegal policies of restricting communication with ICE, released him without bail after the arraignment. Had ICE been able to show up to that arraignment, this terrible murder could have been prevented.

It’s truly hard to overstate the public safety threat of New York’s policy of harboring foreign criminals and also of abolishing bail and barring ICE from courthouses. It essentially means that even the worst repeat violent offenders of other countries, who should never have been in this country to begin with, will be released with almost no recourse for ICE to apprehend them. According to ICE, in fiscal year 2019, denied ICE detainers included illegal aliens with a cumulative total of 200 homicide charges, over 500 robberies, over 1,000 sexual offenses, over 1,000 weapons offenses, over 3,500 assaults, and over 1,500 DUIs. New York has been averaging about 300 murders a year in total. Can you imagine how many of them could have been prevented?

Just remember, while the courts refuse to recognize the right of Americans to move freely, pray in church, and open their businesses, not only can criminals riot without facing prosecution, but illegal alien murderers and sex offenders can get the courts to abolish ICE.

Unless the Trump administration begins asserting separation of powers against these rogue judges, the anarchist goal of abolishing the police might be in plain sight once the courts do to the police what they have done to ICE.