New York Ignored 16K-Plus Detainers for Illegals Accused or Convicted of 50K-Plus Crimes

Jurisdictions across New York have ignored more than 16,000 detainers from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to hold illegal aliens in custody since the Trump administration took office on January 20, 2025.

And those illegal aliens committed more than 50,000 crimes, the New York Post reported yesterday.

The Post also revealed just how dangerous the released the illegal aliens goons are in a separate report on their rap sheets. 

Big Numbers

Since Trump took office 20 months ago, New York has refused to complete with 16,070 detainers — “refusing to hand over criminal migrants suspected or convicted of everything from murder to kidnapping and sexual assault,” the Post reported.

As well, state officials let cities and towns do as they wish when it comes to handling illegal-alien criminals. 

“Hochul even signed the Local Cops, Local Crimes Act in August, which imposed restrictions on certain types of statewide cooperation with ICE on civil immigration matters,” the newspaper reported.

And “there were a deeply troubling 52,503 criminal charges or convictions associated with the ICE detainers that the municipalities across the Empire State have rejected so far under Trump,” the newspaper reported, citing the Department of Homeland Security:

Crimes allegedly committed by the illegal migrants included 131 homicides, 132 kidnappings, 1,017 sexual offenses, 1,561 counts of driving under the influence, 1,631 burglaries, 1,776 robberies and 2,198 weapons infractions.

The alleged crimes against the migrants also included 9,502 assaults and 4,324 counts related to dangerous drugs, according to data from DHS.

Hochul’s mouthpiece, Alexia Nizhny, told the newspaper that “New York State is not and never will be a sanctuary for violent criminals,” for “by law, New York State always notifies federal immigration enforcement of any non-citizen serving a State prison sentence.”

The governor’s data show that the state has turned over about 2,000 illegals to ICE.

Sanctuary for Violent Criminals

Yet if New York State is not and never will be a sanctuary for violent criminals, perhaps Madame Nizhny can explain what the Post revealed separately yesterday.

“An illegal migrant accused of setting a Queens building ablaze and sipping beer as four people burned to death — including a 3-year-old girl — is among a string of accused criminals New York has refused to hand over to ICE, federal officials say,” the newspaper revealed.

That cultural enricher is a 38-year-old Mexican called Roman Ceron Amatitla, who is accused of setting a building ablaze “in Flushing on March 16, killing four people in what Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz called an ‘act of mass murder,’” the newspaper continued:

Amatitla faces eight counts of second-degree murder and a first-degree arson charge. He is being held without bail and faces up to 25 years in prison if convicted.

However, DHS claims that New York City Department of Correction officials refused an April request to cooperate with ICE if and when he is released.

Now maybe the city will change its tune when his sentence is served. But the city released the following violent illegals despite detainers:

• Venezuelan Reivert Jose Urbina-Moreno — assault conviction;
• Mexican Felix Alva-Nava — assault conviction;
• Mexican Brandon Ayala — robbery convicted, arrested for assault;
• Venezuelan Merlin Jose Gonzalez Garcia — convicted of burglary with “arrests for theft, trespassing, resisting police and drug offenses” and drugs and grand larceny; 
• St. Lucian Edward Clement, Jr. — convicted of larceny, with “arrests for robbery, vehicle theft and fraud,” and charged in February with “assault, unlawful imprisonment, and obstructing breathing or blood circulation”;
• Honduran Jose Orellana — convicted of “assault, burglary, larceny, vehicle theft and illegal re-entry, among other offenses”;
• Honduran Yefri Julian Mejia-Martinez — multiple arrests for burglary and other crimes, and charged in July with “robbery and burglary causing injury”;
• Nicaraguan Sergio Daniel Gutierrez — “convictions for grand larceny, burglary, possession of stolen property and disorderly conduct … arrested again in August”;
• Ecuadorian Wilson Heliodor Ortega Lizano — “arrests for assault, menacing, harassment and theft” and charged again in July with “assault and menacing with a weapon; and,
• Venezuelan Dilverson Javier Ruiz Agreda — convicted of grand larceny, arrested for assault and other crimes.

When Will Arrests of Local Officials Begin?

In August last year, then-U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi warned governors and other state and local officials they had to certify they were complying with federal immigration laws.

Bondi wrote that far-left sanctuary jurisdictions “have undermined” and openly “obstructed federal immigration enforcement, giving aliens cover to perpetrate crimes in our communities and evade the immigration consequences that federal law requires.”

In an executive order titled “Protecting American Communities from Criminal Aliens,” President Trump ordered the attorney general and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to identify and publish a list of sanctuary cities. In keeping with that order, Bondi told the sanctuary officials that she is

committed to identifying state and local laws, policies, and practices that facilitate violations of federal immigration laws or impede lawful federal immigration operations, and taking legal action to challenge such laws, policies, or practices.

As well, “individuals operating under the color of law, using their official position to obstruct federal immigration enforcement efforts and facilitating or inducing illegal immigration may be subject to criminal charges.”

Those charged are subject to prosecution for trespassing the following statutes:

• 8 U.S. Code 1324, Bringing in and harboring aliens;
• 18 U.S. Code 371, Conspiracy to commit offense or to defraud United States;
• 18 U.S. Code 1071, Concealing person from arrest;
• 18 U.S. Code 1505, Obstruction of proceedings before departments, agencies, and committees; and/or
• 8 U.S. Code 1373, Communication between government agencies and the Immigration and Naturalization Service.

“This ends now,” Bondi wrote.

But it didn’t end, despite Bondi’s warning, and those of other officials such as Border Czar Tom Homan and then-Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove, now a judge on the U.S. 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals.

“They need to educate themselves,” Homan told Fox News of the sanctuary officials:

They need to review this. Title 8, United States Code 1324 III. Read about that and don’t cross that line because it is a felony to harbor and conceal an illegal alien from [Immigration and Customs Enforcement]. Read the statute. Don’t cross that line.

They did cross that line.

In a memorandum to DOJ employees on January 21, 2025, Bove wrote that the Supremacy Clause requires state and local officials “to comply with the Executive Branch’s [constitutional] immigration enforcement initiatives.” 

Continued Bove:

Federal law prohibits state and local actors from resisting, obstructing, and otherwise failing to comply with lawful immigration-related commands and requests pursuant to, for example, the President’s extensive Article II authority with respect to foreign affairs and national security, the Immigration and Nationality Act, and the Alien Enemies Act.

So far, U.S. officials have not charged sanctuary officials who refuse to comply with federal immigration and other laws.