Horowitz: More MS-13 murder and illegal alien child rape in notorious Maryland sanctuary

Long before Antifa anarchists were allowed to set up an autonomous zone for criminals in Seattle, Montgomery County, Maryland established a de facto autonomous zone of MS-13 and illegal alien murderers and rapists. Over the past year, I've been reporting on the trend of illegal alien child rapists and murderers who have been allowed to commit preventable crimes because the county harbors illegal aliens. The trend has been dubbed "Loco in MoCo" by acting deputy secretary of Homeland Security Ken Cuccinelli.

Just as we see with the BLM anti-police and anti-incarceration agenda causing more black homicides than anything else, the same phenomenon occurs with sanctuary cities for illegal aliens. Ultimately, Hispanic residents are the most common victims of those places that become sanctuaries for illegal alien criminals. On Monday, ICE announced that six of the suspects arrested for the brutal ambush-style murder of Francisco Medrano-Campos outside his apartment in Wheaton, Maryland, in May were in the country illegally.

It is now confirmed that Carlos Andres Orellana, 21; Oscar Effrain Zavala-Urrea, 19; Romeo Almengor Oxlaj-Lopez, 20; Victor Alfonso Cruz-Orellana, 21; Daniel E. Huezo Landaverde, 19; and Jose Lainez-Martinez, 26, all entered the U.S. illegally from Central America during the recent waves from the northern triangle countries since 2014.

"U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement lodged immigration detainers with the Montgomery County Detention Center on Carlos Andres Orellana-Orellana, a citizen of El Salvador; Romeo Oxlaj-Lopez, a citizen of Guatemala; Oscar Zavala-Urrea, a citizen of Honduras; Daniel Enrique Huezo-Landaverde, a citizen of El Salvador; and Victor Cruz-Orellana, a citizen of El Salvador; following their arrests on first-degree murder charges," said ICE's Baltimore field office in a statement. "On July 2, ERO lodged a detainer on Jose Luis Lainez-Martinez, a citizen of El Salvador, following his recent arrest on first-degree murder charges in connection to the same homicide."

It turns out that Orellana-Orellana, Oxlaj-Lopez, Zavala-Urrea, and Cruz-Orellana all entered the U.S. as unaccompanied alien children (UACs). Despite the known gang and crime problem from Central Americans who self-traffic across the border as unaccompanied teens, our government continued to resettle hundreds of thousands of them as refugees for years until it was halted during the coronavirus epidemic. Once again, we see how a refugee program is abused in a way that makes it a magnet for some of the worst gang recruits in the country.

Also, according to ICE, Orellana-Orellana and Oxlaj-Lopez are subject to final orders of removal issued by an immigration judge when they failed to appear for their removal hearings. This means that because ICE is prevented from detaining enough criminal aliens and aliens are often released by immigration judges pending removal, these criminals were able to participate in a murder when they should have been out of the country. Remember, there are 3.2 million known criminals aliens on ICE's undetained docket who remain at large in this country. Over 2 million have final or pending final removal orders, yet remain in the country for years to commit crimes.

This is why there is such a great need to modify our expedited removal laws to ensure that at least illegal aliens with criminal records can be removed from the country without any judicial process, as was the case for most of our history, even if they were here longer than the two-year threshold to trigger expedited removal under current law. Why should we host other countries' criminals indefinitely where we clearly have enough of our own these days? Criminals should be removed immediately by the federal government, and any state that refuses to cooperate should be denied funding in the budget bill.

Which brings me to the case of Linder Meza-Garcia, 18, who is now accused of raping a 12-year-old girl in Montgomery County, but was released on just $10,000 bond without being transferred to ICE. Kevin Lewis of WJLA reports that he is being charged with second-degree rape for sneaking into the home of the 12-year-old girl and having sexual relations with her on numerous occasions. Luckily, ICE was able to apprehend him after he bonded out, but that is often not the case, especially with federal judges barring them ICE from staking out courthouses to nab criminal aliens before they post bond.

Meza-Garcia is an illegal alien from Honduras who was caught by Border Patrol in April 2019 but was resettled in Maryland as an unaccompanied alien minor. It's unclear if Meza-Garcia knew the girl from school, but older illegal aliens, sometimes as old as 21, have been known to prey on younger girls when sanctuaries like Montgomery County place them in American schools against the consent of the citizenry. In February, a 20-year-old illegal alien was charged with raping an 11-year-old he knew from the school they attended together.

Finally, there is the case of Rene Ramos-Hernandez, 56, mentioned in the same article by Kevin Lewis. In August 2018, Montgomery County detectives issued a warrant for his arrest after a victim accused him of child rape at least ten times, years back, when she was a minor. It took two years to catch him, and he was finally booked in jail a few weeks ago on June 18. He was released by a judge on just $30,000 bond in the ever-growing trend of dangerous criminals of all backgrounds being released on little or no bond. Lewis reports that, according to ICE, ICE was notified of the release by Montgomery County police just minutes before the release and could not scramble the agents to make an arrest in time. As a result, Ramos-Hernandez remains at large.

Where is the sanctuary for Americans to live peacefully in their own country without known repeat sex offenders, gang members, and murderers of other countries being resettled and then released into their communities and even schools? If Trump has one fight left on his hands for the remainder of his presidency, it's to veto any bill that does not deny funding for lawless cities that harbor criminals of all types, especially those who could easily be removed from our communities.