The city of Boston released a Haitian man who was in the country illegally after he was arrested and charged with, among other crimes, raping a developmentally disabled person.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents attempted to arrest the man, but officials in the Democrat-run city refused to cooperate and instead released him back into their community.
That is according to an ICE news release the agency published on its website on Wednesday.
The agency did not name the man accused of the sexual assault but identified him as a 31-year-old man from Haiti who entered the country illegally through the open border in 2022.
The man is now in the custody of federal agents, but it took them months to arrest him. One official with the agency called the actions of Boston’s public officials disturbing.
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ICE said in its news release, “Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) Boston apprehended an unlawfully present Haitian national Jan. 9 who was recently arrested by local police on charges of rape and indecent assault and battery on a developmentally disabled person in Dorchester.
“ERO Boston lodged an immigration detainer against the Haitian citizen, but the Dorchester District Court chose not to honor it and released him from jail after his arrest on the sexual assault-related charges.”
ICE said the man was arrested for the alleged crimes last September.
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The agency immediately asked the court to put an immigration hold on the man, and the city agreed — only to later refuse to honor the hold.
“The court did not honor the immigration detainer, and the noncitizen was ultimately released from the jail in Boston, where he had been held since his arrest, with an electronic monitoring device Nov. 8, 2023, pending the resolution of his criminal charges in a local criminal court,” the agency said.
Federal immigration officials were finally able to arrest the man last week.
According to ICE, the man crossed into the U.S. in December 2022 near Brownsville, Texas.
“[The suspect] was deemed inadmissible and issued a notice to appear before an immigration judge with the Department of Justice (DOJ) Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) in Boston,” ICE said in its news release.
ERO Boston Field Office Director Todd Lyons said in a statement released by ICE that officials in the sanctuary city thwarted their attempts to protect the public.
“Disturbingly and despite our filing an immigration detainer, this individual was released back into the community by the criminal court,” Lyons said.
Lyons concluded, “The men and women of ERO Boston continue to protect the community from those who pose a real public safety threat to our communities.
“We remain strongly committed to protecting residents in communities by apprehending those who are not lawfully present in this country and pose a threat to public safety.”
