By Stephen Dinan - The Washington Times - Friday, November 15, 2019
Immigration officials on Friday tied a third murder arrest in two months to sanctuary city policies in the Seattle area, saying an illegal immigrant who was twice shielded from deportation by King County slew a man “as he lay asleep in his own home.”
The man Julio Cruz-Velazquez is accused of killing, Sam Nang Lam, a legal immigrant, according to authorities.
Cruz-Velazquez has an extensive rap sheet that includes charges of second-degree rape last year — but it was pleaded down to second-degree assault. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement asked to be notified upon his release from jail so he could be deported, but King County refused, ICE said.
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Out in the community, he was arrested again on Jan. 4 for drunken driving, and ICE again asked to be notified. The agency says that request, too, was refused by King County Jail.
He also has a domestic violence conviction and has faced charges of robbery, drug possession and possession of a stolen vehicle, ICE says, but local authorities failed each time to notify ICE that he was in custody, and the agency was unable to even make a detainer request.
“Local law enforcement failed the public in this case on multiple occasions,” said Nathalie Asher, director of ICE’s deportation operations in Seattle. “Because of this recklessness, a man who immigrated legally to the U.S. has lost his life, allegedly at the hands of a repeat criminal and immigration offender.”
ICE says illegal immigrants who are shielded by sanctuary policies most often victimize their own immigrant communities.
Local press reports said Cruz-Velazquez, who goes by the street name “Chunks,” was trying to buy drugs at a house and when he was unable to do so, pulled a gun and began to spray bullets.
Some of those bullets struck the neighboring home of Lam, who wasn’t involved in the drug transaction and was in fact trying to fall asleep on his living room couch, authorities said.
Police tied Cruz-Velazquez to the killing through shell casings, the Seattle Times reported.
It’s the third arrest that ICE has tied to the Seattle area’s sanctuary policies since the beginning of October.
Last month prosecutors charged Carlos Orlando Iraheta-Vega with a vicious gang slaying, saying Mr. Iraheta-Vega, an MS-13 member, bashed in the head of a 16-year-old friend of his, before helping a fellow gang member use a machete to carve up the boy’s body.
Those charges came a week after authorities charged Carlos Daniel Carillo-Lopez of being part of a murder posse that killed a teen after his girlfriend posted an online photo of herself making signs for a rival gang.
Both Mr. Iraheta-Vega and Mr. Carillo-Lopez snuck into the U.S. as juveniles and were deemed Unaccompanied Alien Children (UAC), which qualified them for lenient treatment under American law, earning quick release to sponsors in the community.
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