A Massachusetts judge released an illegal immigrant charged with the horrific rape of a developmentally disabled victim rather than honor an immigration detainer. The alleged rapist has since been rearrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and the story is becoming part of the campaign for president across the state line in New Hampshire.
“Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) Boston apprehended an unlawfully present Haitian national Jan. 9 who was recently arrested by local police on charges of rape and indecent assault and battery on a developmentally disabled person in Dorchester,” Immigration and Customs Enforcement reported Thursday. “ERO Boston lodged an immigration detainer against the Haitian citizen, but the Dorchester District Court chose not to honor it and released him from jail after his arrest on the sexual assault-related charges.”
In a statement, ERO Boston Field Office Director Todd M. Lyons said, “Disturbingly and despite our filing an immigration detainer, this individual was released back into the community by the criminal court.”
The illegal alien will now stay in federal ICE custody until his local rape charges are adjudicated, and then ICE will seek to deport him, according to Fox News’ Bill Melugin, who identified the 31-year-old Haitian man as Pierre Lucard Emile.
New Hampshire is no stranger to the issues of illegal immigration and crime. The same day ICE was returning Emile to custody, New Hampshire U.S. Attorney Jane E. Young announced a guilty plea in the case of a human smuggler who “was stopped in Pittsburg, N.H. while transporting in a Honda SUV nine unauthorized immigrants who were in the United States in violation of law.”
In August, Antônio José de Abreu Vidal Filho, convicted of 11 murders in Brazil and sentenced to nearly 276 years in prison, was arrested in Rye, N.H., after illegally living in the Granite State for years.
In the case of Emile, ICE reports he was arrested in September 2023 by Boston police on charges of rape and indecent assault and battery on a developmentally disabled person.
“Following his arrest, ERO Boston lodged an immigration detainer with the Dorchester District Court seeking his custody. The court did not honor the immigration detainer, and the noncitizen was ultimately released from the jail in Boston.”
Polls show the current chaos at America’s border is a top concern of GOP primary voters in the Granite State. The arrest of an illegal alien who raped a disabled person after a Massachusetts court refused to honor an immigration detainer is certain to heighten those concerns.
All three of the top-tier GOP presidential candidates — Ron DeSantis, Nikki Haley, and Donald Trump — have made border security a central tenet of their campaigns. The Trump campaign quickly reacted to the story from Massachusetts.
“Crooked Joe Biden’s open border policy allowed an illegal to invade our country, rape a disabled person, and then be released back into the community—and Nikki Haley does not think we should call this thug a criminal. Illegal immigrants are criminals, and President Trump is the only candidate who will deport them, finish the wall, secure the border, and protect America’s citizens,” said Trump spokesperson Karoline Leavitt.
As president, Joe Biden reversed several major border policies, and multiple monthly records for illegal immigration have been set since he took office. A report released by the House Judiciary Committee Thursday found, “Since Jan. 20, 2021, the Biden administration has released into the United States more than 3.3 million illegal aliens.” That’s twice the population of New Hampshire.
As for the Trump campaign’s attack on Haley, they have accused her of being soft on border security for weeks. An ad from the pro-Trump super PAC MAGA, Inc. says in part: “Drug traffickers. Rapists. Poisoning our country. But Nikki Haley refused to call illegals’ criminals.’”
Haley hit back, noting Trump promised to build a border wall but failed to do so. She also says that when she was governor of South Carolina, that state passed “the toughest illegal immigration law in the country.” Asked about the alleged rapist released in Boston, Haley told NHJournal in a statement:
“As president, my number one priority will be to keep Americans safe. We have to fix Biden’s border crisis. That starts by defunding sanctuary cities, enacting E-Verify, ending catch-and-release, and putting more border patrol and ICE agents on the ground.”
Meanwhile, polls show Americans trust Republicans far more than Democrats to secure the border. And it is largely Democrat-governed states (like Massachusetts) and cities (like Boston) where “sanctuary” policies like refusing to honor an ICE detainer are practiced.
