Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has arrested another illegal immigrant charged with child sex offenses in Boston, just as the Massachusetts governor has said she won’t assist in a mass deportation operation by the incoming Trump administration.
ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) Boston announced this month that they had apprehended a Colombian illegal immigrant on Oct. 29. He had been arrested by the Boston Police Department on charges of enticing a child under 16, distribution of obscene matter, and lascivious posing and exhibiting a child in the nude.
ICE had lodged a detainer — a request that an illegal immigrant be detained until ICE can take them into custody — but the detainer was not honored by local authorities and he was released from custody. The man, Mateo Hincapie Cardona, had been encountered in April by Border Patrol in Arizona and released on his own recognizance.
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An ICE agent monitors hundreds of asylum seekers being processed upon entering the Jacob K. Javits Federal Building on June 6, 2023 in New York City. (David Dee Delgado/Getty Images)
“This individual is charged with committing heinous crimes against a child, which show him to be a distinct threat to our Massachusetts community,” said ERO Boston acting Field Office Director Patricia Hyde.
It’s one of a number of incidents whereby ICE’s Boston unit have had to go after illegal immigrants released from local custody in the city and surrounding areas. “Sanctuary” jurisdictions typically do not honor ICE detainers, arguing that doing so encourages illegal immigrants to come forward and work with police if they are victims or witnesses to crimes. Massachusets is not a sanctuary state as it does not have a sanctuary law on the books, but a number of its cities — including Boston — are sanctuary cities.
In September, ICE announced it had arrested an illegal Salvadoran immigrant who was charged with several sex crimes against a child. He was one of a number of “egregious” illegal immigrant sex offenders caught in an operation in Nantucket.
The same month, ICE announced the arrest of a “gotaway” migrant in Lynn, Massachusetts. He had been charged with rape, indecent assault and battery of a person over 18, but had been released on bail without notifying immigration officials.
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Mateo Hincapie Cardona, 28, is currently in custody pending removal proceedings.
In August, ICE arrested a Brazilian illegal immigrant in Wakefield, Massachusetts, who was charged with assault to rape, indecent assault and battery, and domestic assault and battery in Massachusetts.
A law enforcement source confirmed to Fox News that despite having an active arrest warrant for domestic violence, the local bail commissioner allowed him to be released back on bond.
In March, Fox News embedded with ICE officers in Boston and saw them make five arrests, including four alleged child rapists and a member of MS-13, a group of potential dangerous criminals the officers say were allowed on the streets because of local sanctuary policies that denied the agency’s detainer requests.
While ERO Boston Field Office Director Todd Lyons praised the work of local officers to remove the potential threats to the community from the streets, he admitted the sanctuary policies in Boston are “frustrating” and make it more difficult for the agency to do its job.
But those sanctuary policies are likely to come more into focus with the looming Trump administration.
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President-elect Trump has promised to carry out a mass deportation operation, and this week tapped former acting ICE Director Tom Homan as the “border czar.”
Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey has said state police would “absolutely not” assist agents in their deportation operations, and hinted at potential action to push back against the administration.
“Some realities need to be noted, and that is in 2016, we had a different situation in the courts, and I am sure there may be litigation ahead. There is a lot of other ways people are going to act and need to act for the sake of their states and residents,” Healey said. “There’s regulatory authority and executive powers and the like. There’s legislation also within our state.
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“So I think the key here is that, you know, every tool in the tool box has got to be used to protect our citizens, to protect our residents and protect our states and to hold the line on democracy and the rule of law as a basic principle.”
A source at ICE Boston was unimpressed by Healey’s comments.
“Governor Healey’s sanctuary policies protect the criminals and endanger law enforcement officers everyday,” they said. “Her policies do not protect the citizens of the communities to which she took an oath.”