Mayor Bill de Blasio rebutted a claim by President Donald Trump in his State of the Union address that New York's sanctuary city policy led to the murder of a Queens woman earlier this year, accusing the president of trying to "exploit" the victim's death.
Reeaz Khan, 21, was charged with murder and sexual abuse in the January 6th attack on 92-year-old Maria Fuertes in Richmond Hill. The federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency had filed a request to detain Khan, who is undocumented, in November 2019 because he was charged with assault in a separate incident. New York City law requires officials to turn over to ICE only suspects who are convicted of violent and serious offenses.
"Tragically, there are many cities in America where radical politicians have chosen to provide sanctuary for these criminal illegal aliens. In Sanctuary Cities, local officials order police to release dangerous criminal aliens to prey upon the public, instead of handing them over to ICE to be safely removed," Trump said in the address. "Just 29 days ago, a criminal alien freed by the Sanctuary City of New York was charged with the brutal rape and murder of a 92-year-old woman. The killer had been previously arrested for assault, but under New York’s sanctuary policies, he was set free. If the city had honored ICE’s detainer request, his victim would be alive today."
After the State of the Union Address, de Blasio called Trump's comments "a craven attack" on the NYPD.
"Every time @realDonaldTrump opens his mouth he lies so I’m never surprised, but to exploit the murder of a 92-year-old woman in a craven attack on the extraordinary work the NYPD has done to protect our city is as loathsome as it gets. He’s a corrupt disgrace," de Blasio said in a tweet Tuesday night.
Khan is currently in custody and awaiting trial in the murder case. A Guyanese native, he came to America on a visitor's visa in October 2016 and stayed past his visa's expiration in March 2017. He was arrested November 27th last year on charges of assault and criminal possession of a weapon for allegedly attacking his father with a broken coffee cup.
The federal government has recently escalated its legal battle with New York over its sanctuary city status. On Monday, ICE filed a motion with a federal court to order the city to respond to subpoenas seeking more information about Khan and another undocumented immigrant, Romero Ramirez Macias, who was arrested on drug charges in a separate case and released.
ICE wrote in the filing that the agency has “broad, undoubted power over the subject of immigration and the status of aliens,” and the legal authority to access the city records.
The city's law department told ICE it has grave concerns the subpoenas lack a legitimate purpose and are instead a political stunt to intimidate the city into changing its law.
Trump has long threatened to punish the sanctuary cities that defy his immigration policies, including Chicago, Austin, Boston, Denver, Detroit, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, New Haven, Madison, Newark, San Francisco, Seattle, and Santa Fe. Last month, ICE sent similar subpoenas for information and custody of four suspects in Denver. The city did not seem alarmed by the tactic:
“There is no indication (the subpoenas) are related to a criminal investigation,” Ryan Luby, a spokesman for the Denver city attorney’s office, told the Denver Post. “Denver does not comply with subpoenas unless they are court-ordered or unless they are primarily related to a criminal investigation. Our immigration ordinance fully complies with federal law.”
With Beth Fertig/WNYC
