New York City and federal officials are at loggerheads over immigration policy following a 92-year-old woman’s rape and murder allegedly by undocumented Guyanese man Reeaz Khan.
The federal immigration officials are blaming the city’s sanctuary policy for enabling the crime and City Hall, in turn, has criticised the federal officials for using the tragedy to trumpet their immigration agenda.
Khan, 21, had confessed to the slaying of elderly Maria Fuentes outside her home in Queens after authorities picked him up last week. He was subsequently charged on Friday with murder and sexual assault.
The New York Daily News reported yesterday that Thomas Decker, field office director for the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) removal operations accused the NY Police Department of ignoring a federal request to turn over Khan, who was busted in November for assaulting his father, and charged that this left the man free to kill Fuentes six weeks later.
“Clearly the politicians care more about criminal illegal aliens than the citizens they are elected to serve and protect,” Decker was quoted as saying. “It was a deadly choice to release a man on an active ICE detainer back on the streets, and now he faces new charges, including murder,” he added.
The Daily News report said that the NYPD and City Hall fired back in tandem at the allegations and blasted the federal immigration officials for using the tragedy to trumpet their immigration agenda.
The newspaper reported that the police first issued a statement refuting ICE’s version of what happened, insisting the department was never notified about any detainer in this case. A City Hall source echoed the police account, adding that the city’s standard for turning over suspects was conviction rather than just allegations.
“We mourn with the family of Ms Fuentes,” said mayoral spokeswoman Olivia Lapeyrolerie. “If Mr Khan is convicted, the city will cooperate with federal officials in accordance with local law. It is shameful that the Trump Administration is politicising this tragedy.”
The Daily News report said that Khan remains jailed on Rikers Island. Fuentes was strangled and found on the sidewalk at Liberty Avenue and 127th Street in Richmond Hill, just a block from her home, around midnight last week Monday. The elderly Queens resident was scavenging for returnable bottles and cans to collect a few extra dollars at the time, the Daily News reported.
The report said that ICE officials indicated that they targeted Khan following the Nov. 27 attack on his dad with a broken coffee cup, only to get the cold shoulder in their effort to deport the suspect because of the city’s sanctuary policies. Khan was arraigned on charges of assault and criminal possession of a weapon and released after cutting his dad in the chest and arm with the mug.
Six weeks later, he was on the Queens streets at the same time that Fuentes was walking through Richmond Hill shortly after midnight on Jan. 6. His brother called police to identify Reeaz as the suspect after a video of the horrifying incident was released by police, the newspaper reported.
The sobbing, sniffling suspect denied any part in the elderly woman’s death during an exclusive Rikers Island interview with the Daily News.
The newspaper reported that Decker said his agency filed a second detainer Monday with the NYPD in hopes of taking Khan into custody following the murder arrest, adding that the suspect was an “unlawfully present Guyanese national.”
Decker further criticised the city’s policy. New York’s sanctuary status “repeatedly protects criminal aliens who show little regard for the laws of this nation,” he said.
