Baltimore ICE Arrests Record Number of Illegal Immigrant Sex Offenders

An Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent detains an illegal immigrant, in this file photo. John Moore/Getty Images

The Baltimore office of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has arrested a record number of illegal immigrant sex offenders this fiscal year.

The office’s record of 152 was broken in late August when officers from ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) in Baltimore apprehended Madai Gamaliel Amaya, a Honduran national convicted of rape, according to a Sept. 6 statement.

“This is a landmark arrest for ERO Baltimore, in that they secured a record 153 noncitizen sex offenders arrested in their area of operations during a single fiscal year,” ERO Executive Associate Director Daniel Bible said in a statement.

“But more importantly, there are 153 victims who need not fear their predators.”

Since Amaya’s arrest, more arrests have been made, James Covington, a spokesperson for ICE’s ERO in Baltimore, confirmed in a Sept. 9 statement emailed to The Epoch Times.

The Baltimore office has brought in a total of 161 noncitizen sex offenders so far this fiscal year, which concludes at the end of September.

In Maryland, sanctuary policies for illegal aliens have made enforcement more challenging, according to ICE officials.

Sanctuary jurisdictions enact policies that shield illegal immigrants from federal immigration authorities, and they often ban cooperation between local law enforcement and ICE.

Amaya, who was arrested on Aug. 29, was convicted of the second-degree rape of a Maryland woman in 2009. He had unlawfully entered the United States multiple times, even after being deported in 2013 and again in 2018, according to ICE.

Simon Hankinson, a former foreign service officer with the State Department and a senior research fellow in The Heritage Foundation’s Border Security and Immigration Center, is a critic of sanctuary policies.

He noted in an op-ed for The Epoch Times in March that ICE had asked a county in Maryland 119 times this year to detain and hand over illegal immigrant criminals whose convictions included gang membership, sex abuse of a minor, and rape.

At the time, the county in question hadn’t honored a single request, Hankinson wrote.

“When detainers are honored, ICE can lock potentially violent alien suspects or convicts safely away from the public,” he wrote. “Unfortunately, many local and even state governments in the United States have ’sanctuary' policies, one of which is to refuse to inform ICE when they arrest or release an alien.”

Proponents of sanctuary city policies argue that these measures foster trust between local law enforcement and immigrant communities, which can lead to safer neighborhoods.

By ensuring that local police are not involved in immigration enforcement, sanctuary policies encourage illegal immigrants to report crimes and cooperate with investigations without fear of deportation, according to the American Immigration Council.