In January, Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agents picked up an MS-13 gang member who’d been convicted of accessory-to-murder charges in Montgomery County, Md.
They caught their man on the streets after he’d been released by local officials — and freed potentially to commit new crimes — despite ICE’s request to have him detained so it couldn deport him.
ICE officials say the locals ignored them and freed him anyway, though the county claims it never got the request.
Whatever actually happened, this guy shouldn’t have even been here: The 30-year-old violent felon from El Salvador came got into the country illegally and was supposed to be deported in 2007.
Deporting him after he served his sentence should’ve been a top priority.
Alas, incidents of this kind hardly surprise; they’re now the “new normal.”
American citizens expect to be used as a doormat by the entire world, MS-13 included.
Rather than address the issue, the left handwaves it away, as the price of living in a modern democratic state.
Even some Republicans, like Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.), are complicit.
Lankford’s recent border deal, touted as a bipartisan win, offers President Biden the “potential” to close the border, should as many as 8,500 illegal border crossings occur in a single day.
This “maximum daily total” would amount to 3.1 million illegal immigrants entering the United States every year.
That’s hardly the bipartisan victory Lankford promised.
No wonder the bill was declared dead on arrival by House Speaker Mike Johnson.
If Americans are serious about protecting themselves from MS-13 and other migrant gangs, it needs to stop the flow of illegal newcomers at the border.
But it also needs to prioritize deporting migrant criminals roaming the country.
Particularly violent ones, like those with ties to gangs like MS-13.
It’s worth noting that the group’s presence lately in El Salvador has declined markedly.
For decades, the most remarkable thing about that small Central American nation was its sky-high homicide rates, at one point the highest in the world, reaching a staggering 106.82 per 100,000 people in 2015.
Life under narcoterrorism had become the “new normal” for millions of people there.
The gang had based its operations in El Salvador for years, but today, MS-13 is virtually extinct there.
After a crackdown, the country’s murder rate plummeted to the lowest in the Western Hemisphere, at just 2.4 murders per 100,000 people.
True, Americans might not approve of all the regime’s methods — liberal groups label them “authoritarian” — but its determination to stamp out the terror the gang inflicted on its population stands in stark contrast to the carefree leniency America shows even those migrant criminals with violent-gang ties.
There are certainly acceptable steps we can take: For example, Republicans can and should push to require that federal funding earmarked for law enforcement be withheld from localities that refuse to cooperate with federal enforcement efforts.
In a report soon to be published by the Center for Immigration Studies, I outline some specific sources of funding that can be defunded right now.
I found that in 2023, the Department of Justice awarded $1.56 billion in law-enforcement-related funding to sanctuary jurisdictions.
This sum came from three major sources: The State Criminal Alien Assistance Program, the Community Oriented Policing Services and awards distributed by the Office of Justice Program.
SCAAP ironically serves to reimburse state and local prisons for a portion of the cost of incarcerating illegal immigrants.
COPS and OJP represent vital federal funding for policing and justice programs.
And of the funding available to these programs, a total of 29.3% went to jurisdictions that have policies to prohibit, de facto or de jure, cooperation with federal immigration and enforcement efforts.
Republicans, so often resigned to defeatist bargains like Lankford’s, need to think bigger.
Make America a sanctuary for her own citizens.
Ensure illegal migrant felons have no place on our streets.
That vision begins with Republicans fighting to use the power of the purse to defund sanctuary jurisdictions.
Nathan Desautels is an intern at the Center for Immigration Studies.
