The “fugitive” illegal immigrant has since been charged with murdering 37-year-old Rachel Morin. At the same time, sanctuary jurisdictions throughout Maryland continue to protect illegal immigrants who commit crimes from arrest and deportation.
On August 5, 2023, Rachel Maurin, a mother of five, went for a walk on the Mama & Papa Heritage Trail in Bel Air, Harford County, Maryland. When she did not return home, her boyfriend, Richard Tobin, reported her missing.
The next day her body was found by the side of the road.
On June 15, 2024, Tulsa Police arrested 23-year-old Victor Antonio Martinez Hernandez, an illegal immigrant from El Salvador with ties to the MS-13 gang, for the rape and murder of Morin in Los Angeles, California, and the assault of a 9-year-old girl and her mother.
On Tuesday, Martinez-Hernandez Indicted He was indicted in Harford County on charges of first- and second-degree murder, rape, sexual assault and kidnapping. Prosecutors say Morin was found with 15 blunt injuries to her head and that Martinez-Hernandez raped her and then strangled her.
While Maureen’s murder made national headlines and attracted the attention of former President Donald Trump, Maryland’s most populous cities and counties continue to enforce sanctuary policies that protect criminal illegal immigrants from arrest and deportation by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents.
In Baltimore, Prince George’s, Howard and Montgomery counties, according to the Center for Immigration Studies, Sanctuary Policy To prevent ICE officers from detaining illegal immigrants arrested for local crimes.
Reservation counties account for approximately 3 million of Maryland’s 6.1 million residents, nearly half of the state’s population.
In February, Montgomery County authorities protected from deportation at least twice Nilson Granados Trejo, a 25-year-old undocumented immigrant from El Salvador who was later charged with shooting and killing 2-year-old Jeremy Poo Caceres in Prince George’s County.
Granados Trejo first arrived at the US-Mexico border as an unaccompanied alien child (UAC) near Hidalgo, Texas, in May 2014. He was subsequently turned over to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and resettled in New Jersey with a man who claimed to be his father.
In 2022, a federal judge ordered Granados-Trejo deported after he failed to appear in immigration court, but he was not deported. He was arrested twice for theft in Montgomery County, but local authorities continued to release him into the community rather than turn him over to ICE officials.
Similarly, in December 2023, ICE agents finally located and arrested an illegal immigrant MS-13 gang member who had repeatedly avoided deportation thanks to Prince George’s County’s sanctuary policy.
The illegal immigrant had been potentially turned over to ICE agents multiple times after being arrested on local charges in Prince George’s County. Weeks after authorities released him from jail in late 2016, he was arrested on a murder charge.
The illegal immigrant was convicted of manslaughter in 2018 and served just one month in prison. Despite his conviction, authorities in Prince George’s County released him back into the community instead of turning him over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter. here.
