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ICE launches Terrorist Raid in Ithaca NY [1]

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Date: 2025-01-31

Yesterday a dozen or so ICE agents dressed in combat uniforms and carrying automatic weapons carried out a series of raids around my county, including at the Department of Social Services, ostensibly to capture a single Mexican citizen, Jesus Romero-Hernandez who had been released from the local jail two days earlier. Acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove has threatened to prosecute the local sheriff for failing to “honor a valid federal arrest warrant for a criminal alien,” and then went on at length about protecting the public from dangerous migrants.

​​​​​​A little background: For decades ICE has had a practice of issuing detainer warrants to local jails when an undocumented immigrant is being held in jail, and asking them to continue to incarcerate that person after their local charges are resolved. This is flatly illegal since local sheriffs and police have no authority to enforce immigration laws or detain illegal immigrants. Many local jails comply anyway and often hold prisoners for weeks or months after their sentences are completed.

I used to serve on our local county legislature and it became clear to us that this was simply a cost shifting tactic. ICE wanted our local jail to incarcerate their detainees in our jail at our expense because they didn’t want to do it and pay for it themselves. Our county made a decision many years ago that we were not playing. If ICE has a valid federal arrest warrant, we are happy to tell them when the inmate will be released and they can come to the jail, serve the warrant, and take him into custody.

Our Sheriff did not fail to honor an arrest warrant. ICE never presented one. Had they actually wanted to take Mr. Romero-Hernandez into custody they could have sent a single agent to go to the jail and get him. That was not their goal. Their goal was to target a sanctuary city for a terrorist intimidation raid, and that’s what they did. They marched around town flaunting their combat gear, and waving their guns. Then they held a press conference in NY City, 230 miles away, to tell the national press that they weren’t going to tolerate any interference from sanctuary cities, and were considering charging the sheriff. They will never do that of course, because there is no case. The whole operation was strictly for show in order to intimidate other immigrants and other sanctuary cities.

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