Oregon sanctuaries force ICE to apprehend alleged child sex offender in courthouse

Will sanctuaries and open-borders advocates get in the way of ICE even when it’s apprehending an accused child sex offender? Evidently so, in the state of Oregon.

Yesterday, open-borders advocates fought with ICE agents who stood outside the Clatsop County Courthouse in Astoria, Oregon, to apprehend Fabian Alberto Zamora-Rodriguez. He was attending a hearing related to his charges of child sex abuse.

According to the Daily Astorian, ICE was forced to release pepper spray after “immigrant rights' advocates and the man's mother and partner tightly surrounded him as he tried to leave.” The paper quotes “immigrant rights” groups that protested by promulgating a dangerous lie that ICE needs a criminal warrant to apprehend an illegal alien for deportation.

Just who were “immigrant rights” groups protecting, and why did ICE have to wait almost five months after his arrest to apprehend him at the courthouse?

Clatsop County sheriff’s deputies arrested Zamora-Rodriguez on February 27 when he was caught in an online child sex sting leading to his apprehension at a local park, where police suspected he was planning a sexual rendezvous with an 11-year-old boy. Here is part of the Daily Astorian’s write-up of the arrest:

Zamora was booked in the Clatsop County Jail on one count each of first and second-degree online sexual corruption of a child, two counts of attempted use of a child in a sexually explicit display and eight counts of encouraging child sexual abuse in the first degree.

Zamora allegedly used online communications to make detailed plans to meet the child in person for sexual contact twice, but only followed through with his plans once. He also allegedly pressured a person he believed to be 11 to send him lewd images.

Even someone this bad evidently was not turned over to ICE. Why else would ICE have to wait until the hearing and grab him at the courthouse? When I reached out to ICE for more information, they said that due to privacy concerns they could not comment on this specific individual. However, Tanya Roman, spokeswoman for ICE’s northwestern field office, told CR that in general, “It is actually often due to the implementation of unreasonable ‘sanctuary city’ policies that prevent ICE from being notified of the presence of criminal aliens in jails or prisons, which then necessitates that we utilize options like enforcement actions at courthouses to accomplish our law enforcement mission.”

An example of why ICE would have to wait for a court date to make its move on behalf of public safety, according to Roman, is if the criminal alien is not handed over at the jail and doesn’t have a known address, there is a serious risk they will lose track of the individual. “Absent a viable residential address or place of employment, a courthouse may afford the most likely opportunity to locate a target and take him or her into custody.”

The same local governments and advocacy groups who seek to hamper ICE efforts to arrest illegal aliens at safe and stable locations like jailhouses then complain about ICE showing up at courthouses as the only viable alternative. Otherwise, illegal aliens who have victimized people might be let out on bail and abscond.

“In years past, most of these individuals would have been turned over to ICE by local authorities upon their release from jail based on ICE detainers,” said Roman. “Now that some cities do not honor ICE detainers, these individuals, who often have significant criminal histories, are released onto the street, presenting a potential public safety threat.”

There is a pervasive problem with alien child sex offenders. Border Patrol catches them every day at the border when they seek to return after removal. According to the Epoch Times, one citizen in North Carolina collated criminal data from only 30 percent of North Carolina counties and found that in just the past 18 months, “more than 331 illegal aliens have been charged with 1,172 child rapes and child sexual assaults.”

Federal law (8 U.S.C. 1373) prohibits state and local government from “in any way restrict[ing], any government entity or official from sending to, or receiving from, the Immigration and Naturalization Service information regarding the citizenship or immigration status, lawful or unlawful, of any individual.” 8 U.S.C. 1324 also prohibits individuals, whether in government or in advocacy groups from encouraging, inducing, harboring, shielding from detection, or transporting illegal aliens in any way or attempting to do so. This is clearly violated on a daily basis, yet the federal government has been lax in enforcing these laws.

What’s clearly evident about “immigrant rights” groups and the politicians who support them is that they now believe anyone who wants should be able to enter our country and should never be deported, including even accused child sex offenders. States like Oregon have already laid down that marker. The question now is: How will the political leaders on the federal side respond?

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