Northeast

Blue state county ignores ICE detainers against illegal immigrant charged with rape

Published

1 year ago

January 17, 2025

Press Room

Blue state county ignores ICE detainers against illegal immigrant charged with rape

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Boston ICE agents had to arrest a Brazilian illegal immigrant charged with rape and extortion twice because of sanctuary policies in the state of Massachusetts.

An ICE statement published last week said that Boston Enforcement and Removal Operations officials arrested 29-year-old Agnaldo Moreira da Cruz, for the second time in December.

This came after officials in Barnstable County, in Massachusetts’ Cape Cod, twice ignored ICE detainer requests against Moreira da Cruz.

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June 2, 2022: ICE agents conduct an enforcement operation in the U.S. interior. (Immigration and Customs Enforcement)

According to the ICE statement, the Barnstable County Superior Court not only ignored their detainer requests but also violated the terms of their own agreement by refusing to return Moreira da Cruz to ICE, after obtaining him through a “writ of habeas corpus.”

Moreira da Cruz was originally arrested in August 2023 by police in Yarmouth. He was arraigned in December 2023 and held at the Barnstable County Correctional Facility, which is run by the Barnstable Sheriff’s Office, until he was released on June 18, 2024, despite there being an ICE detainer against him.

ICE tracked down and arrested Moreira da Cruz several months later on Oct. 16 and, after receiving a habeas corpus request, had to again turn him over to the Barnstable Superior Court on Nov. 27. The court then ignored the ICE detainer and released him on Dec. 5.

Moreira da Cruz is charged with a series of violent felonies, including rape and extortion with threat of injury.

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This split shows Mass. Gov. Maura Healey and a group of migrants at the southern border. (Qian Weizhong/VCG via Getty Images and Jessica Rinaldi/The Boston Globe via Getty Images)

“This is not someone you want to release into the community, but twice now our detainers have been ignored,” said ICE. “These decisions have repeatedly put the citizens of Massachusetts at risk of being victimized by an alleged dangerous offender.”

Asked why the ICE detainer was not honored, a spokesperson for the Massachusetts Trial Court sent Fox News Digital a copy of the policy followed by the court, which is based on a precedent set by a 2017 Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruling called “Lunn vs. Commonwealth.”

The policy stipulates that Trial Court employees “do not have authority to detain an individual based solely” on ICE detainers and those immigrants subject to these requests “shall be processed and handled in the same way that all other individuals coming before the court are processed and handled.”

The policy also states that no court officer or employee may “call or otherwise initiate communication with any ICE official” to notify them that an immigrant is in court custody and that “no ICE official shall be permitted to take an individual into custody pursuant to a civil immigration detainer in a courtroom.”

ICE NABS ILLEGAL MIGRANT ACCUSED OF HEINOUS CRIME AND RELEASED BY MASSACHUSETTS SHERIFF’S OFFICE

Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials looking to arrest an illegal immigrant with criminal record, raid a home on Thursday, Sept. 8, 2022 in Los Angeles, CA. (Irfan Khan/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)

Barnstable Sheriff Donna Buckley told Fox News Digital that Lunn vs. Commonwealth makes it so that “it is unlawful for state and local law enforcement agencies to arrest or detain people solely on the basis of an ICE detainer, beyond the time that the individual would otherwise be entitled to be released from State custody.”

“The Massachusetts sheriffs operate within the scope and parameters of federal, state and local laws and regulations,” said Buckley. “As such, the sheriffs are bound to follow the law of the Commonwealth, and therefore cannot hold an individual based on an ICE detention request alone, if that incarcerated individual is not subject to separate judicially issued detention orders.”

“The sheriffs do not make the law. The sheriffs enforce the law,” she added.

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Gov. Maura Healey of Massachusetts has said that the state has reached its limit with respect to shelter space. (AP Photo/Steve LeBlanc)

Meanwhile, Andrew Arthur, a former immigration judge and law and policy expert at the Center for Immigration Studies, told Fox News Digital, though the Massachusetts courts have the final say in instances such as this, “it’s important to note that’s not necessarily the final word.”

“Immigration is the ultimate federal issue,” said Arthur. “When states interpose themselves in that process, they’re really getting into an area in which they have no expertise based upon anecdote and speculation.”

CLICK HERE FOR MORE IMMIGRATION COVERAGE

He noted that states and localities receive billions of dollars in federal funding every year, which can be made dependent on complying with federal immigration authorities.

“On the one hand, they’re demanding money from the federal government, and on the other hand, they’re telling the federal government that they won’t assist them in a key government duty,” he said. “Congress can always place any conditions that they want on funding, and this is a reasonable condition for them to put in place.”

ICE ARRESTS ALLEGED CHILD SEX PREDATOR, MS-13 GANG MEMBER IN MASSACHUSETTS

L- U.S. Southern border R – President Trump (Getty Images)

Arthur said that he anticipates the Trump administration and incoming border czar Tom Homan will move quickly to push Congress to put such stipulations in place.

“The biggest issue with this is that it places ICE enforcement and removal officers in great danger because, rather than taking custody of a criminal in a secure location, a local jail or a state prison, they have to actually go out on the street. They have to find that person at their house, and that puts their lives at danger,” he explained. “It’s also important to note this is a community safety issue.”

“If we really want to keep our streets safe,” he went on, “the best way to do that is to take the criminals off the street. And really, that’s what should be happening, and I anticipate you will see a movement, particularly under a second Trump administration, to make that happen.”

Despite the actions by Barnstable County officials, Moreira da Cruz is currently in ICE custody, pending immigration and criminal proceedings.

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New York

Four Epstein Victims Ask N.Y. Lawmakers to Open His Estate to Lawsuits

Published

1 hour ago

May 4, 2026

Press Room

Four Epstein Victims Ask N.Y. Lawmakers to Open His Estate to Lawsuits

Seated before an array of New York State senators on Monday, Lara Blume McGee was asked by one lawmaker why it had taken her so long to go public with the details of how Jeffrey Epstein had abused her.

She paused for a moment, another victim of Mr. Epstein’s by her side, and leaned forward to speak into the microphone in the State Capitol.

“Fear,” said Ms. Blume McGee, who had been 17 and an aspiring model when Mr. Epstein abused her. It took her about 20 years to come forward.

“Jeffrey Epstein was a great manipulator,” she added, explaining that she feared being sued and having her life ruined by his capacity for retribution.

Ms. Blume McGee was among four women who testified in the State Capitol about the trauma Mr. Epstein inflicted upon them and the lasting damage he did to their lives. The appearance of two of the women — Ms. Blume McGee and Carine Silva De Deus — had been expected, but two other women — Glendys Espinal and Alexandra Golematis — also came forward. Both said they were speaking publicly for the first time about their experiences with Mr. Epstein.

Their testimony comes as State Senator Zellnor Myrie, a Democrat from Brooklyn, seeks support for legislation intended to update state sex-trafficking laws. The goal, Mr. Myrie said, was to better equip the state to handle the kinds of crimes that Mr. Epstein was accused of committing by criminalizing the actions of people who helped perpetuate his behavior.

If passed, the laws would also allow Mr. Epstein’s victims to sue his associates and his estate in state court for punitive damages. State law prevents people from seeking punitive damages from the estate of someone who has died.

“Trafficking is not sustained by one single actor. It is not just Jeffrey Epstein,” said Kathryn Robb, a lawyer who has been pushing for these sorts of legislative changes across the country.

“It is a network that includes financial backers, businesses and other intermediaries, who often escape accountability,” she added. “This bill will disrupt that.”

Ms. Espinal, a Bronx native, said she first met Mr. Epstein during her sophomore year of high school, when she was brought in to give him massages. The demands from the financier quickly escalated, and she said she still has post-traumatic stress disorder from these interactions, which occurred between 2005 and 2008.

“What was going through my head at the time was just pure shame and intimidation,” she said.

Mr. Myrie’s bill, which has no companion legislation in the Assembly as of yet, is not state lawmakers’ only effort to reckon with Mr. Epstein’s legacy and the pain he caused hundreds of women.

Assemblywoman Pamela Hunter, a Democrat from the Syracuse area, and Senator Liz Krueger, a Democrat representing parts of Manhattan, have introduced a bill that would close what they call the “Epstein loophole.” In the state’s laws relating to prostitution, the buyers of a sex worker’s services, or those facilitating them, are excluded from punishment under the statute relating to people being punished for “advancing prostitution.”

“New York should act quickly and close the Epstein loophole, which would have prevented men like Jeffrey Epstein and Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs from being charged with trafficking at the state level,” Ms. Hunter said in a statement last month.

“This bill is necessary to ensure that traffickers and sex buyers are held accountable, while survivors of sexual exploitation are given the care and support they need,” she added, explaining that the law would also reduce punishments for those who perform sex work.

Mr. Epstein and his estate have settled several lawsuits with victims in recent years. The New York Times reported in February that a recent court filing showed that his estate was valued at $120 million, though the estimate might be an undercount.

Nathan Werksman, a lawyer for the women who testified on Monday, said that time was of the essence to change the law and give Ms. Blume McGee and others the chance to seek financial damages from Mr. Epstein’s estate.

Mr. Myrie’s bill, which the Senate Codes Committee passed on Monday, creates a one-year look-back period so that people can sue for actions that fall outside the statute of limitations. In this manner, it resembles the Adult Survivors Act, which in 2022 opened a one-time window in New York permitting people to file sex-abuse lawsuits after the statute of limitations had expired.

“The Epstein Estate is a finite amount of money that is dwindling every day, every week, and every month,” Mr. Werksman said.

“Jeffrey Epstein was able to escape criminal accountability, and his estate can escape civil liability if the estate dwindles down to nothing,” he added.

Lawyers for Mr. Epstein’s estate did not respond to emails seeking comment.