Sanctuary policies are enabling criminal illegal immigrants to remain in the U.S. for decades, repeatedly offending while evading deportation, according to federal immigration authorities. Instead of experiencing cooperation, officers are forced into increasingly hostile conditions in order to conduct arrests—creating a cycle of chaos that emboldens criminals to prey on generations of innocent Americans.
In one recent case, an 18-year-old illegal immigrant from El Salvador, Israel Christopher Flores Ortiz, was found guilty on nine misdemeanor counts of assault and battery in Fairfax County, Virginia, for groping multiple female classmates in the hallways of his high school.
Ortiz, released into the United States in 2024 under the Biden administration, is now being protected by Virginia’s sanctuary policies.
“This 18-year-old criminal illegal alien should NOT have been attending a Virginia high school and allowed to prey on innocent teenage girls. Following his criminal convictions for nine counts of assault and battery, we are once again calling on Governor Spanberger and her fellow sanctuary politicians to NOT RELEASE this sexual predator from jail back into our communities to victimize more innocent women,” said Acting Assistant Secretary Lauren Bis. “This is yet another example of the Biden Administration’s failed open border policies.”
A Fairfax County judge sentenced 18-year-old criminal illegal alien Israel Christopher Flores Ortiz, of El Salvador, to jail for groping several female classmates in the hallways of his Virginia high school earlier this year.
ICE would like to take custody of him for immigration… pic.twitter.com/q4igBb8ts4
— U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (@ICEgov) April 21, 2026
Despite government data showing high rates of reoffense for sex crimes Fairfax County — operating under sanctuary-style limits on cooperation — has denied ICE’s detainer. Instead, ICE says that officers will now have to track Ortiz down after release, prolonging his presence among potential victims.
Illustrating the consequences of protecting criminal illegal aliens over law-abiding citizens, ICE emphasized that the same catch-and-release, non-cooperation policies which will likely allow Ortiz to reoffend, also helped to build the decades-long criminal rap sheet of Cuban national Eledoro Valenzuela Rodriguez.
SANCTUARIES HELP CUBAN ILLEGAL ALIEN AUTHOR DECADES-LONG RAP SHEET
Despite a 1980 final removal order, lenient sentences from NY and MD enabled repeat offender Eledoro Valenzuela Rodriguez to amass these convictions, along with numerous charges, like battery, being dismissed:… pic.twitter.com/IvVgPBeIHT
— U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (@ICEgov) April 21, 2026
Rodriguez, ordered for removal in 1980, has a record that includes convictions and charges for weapon possession, controlled substances, cocaine dealing, marijuana possession, felon-in-possession of a firearm, trespassing and alcohol violations across New York, Maryland, Indiana and now Florida.
According to ICE, lenient sentences and non-cooperation in sanctuary jurisdictions allowed Rodriguez to reoffend repeatedly over forty-years. That crime spree ended last month, however, when Miami police turned Rodriguez over to ICE after being charged with new drug and firearm charges.
Critics argue such policies create safe havens that allow criminal illegal aliens to grow old while victimizing Americans. A 2015 policy paper illustrates how sanctuary cities – defying federal immigration law, just as Southern jurisdictions defied federal civil rights laws in the 1960s – put law-abiding citizens at risk.
“In 2011, the Government Accountability Office released a study on approximately 250,000 illegal aliens locked up in our federal, state and local prisons. Those prisoners had been arrested nearly 1.7 million times and committed 3 million offenses, averaging about seven arrests and 12 offenses each. Their convictions ran the gamut from drug-dealing and sex crimes to kidnapping and murder.”
Federal data shows that at least 41,085 ICE detainers have been denied by sanctuary jurisdictions since Oct. 2022, with tens of thousands denied annually, often involving serious offenses.
Mamdani: "We are proud of the sanctuary city policies we have…I do not want a future of this city where we learn how to deal with ICE."
"I believe ICE should be abolished." pic.twitter.com/sJ9H7JTzXf
— Defiant L’s (@DefiantLs) April 22, 2026
Concerningly, when local authorities ignore ICE requests, agents must conduct resource-intensive at-large arrests—creating the optics of “cruel and inhumane raids.”
While proponents of sanctuary approaches say the policies avoid entangling local police in federal immigration matters, critics counter that non-cooperation, coupled with activist obstruction only escalates tensions—placing more lives in danger during enforcement operations.
Moreover, ICE says these policies enable continued criminal activity, while protecting criminals over their victims.
“Sanctuary policies protect criminals like Valenzuela Rodriguez and enable them to prey on generations of innocent Americans,” ICE Director Todd M. Lyons said. “These policies don’t make communities safer. They make enforcement more difficult and force federal officers into more dangerous — and more public — situations. ICE will continue to enforce the law, regardless of local politics.”
