Federal law enforcement announced the arrest of a thrice-deported illegal immigrant who now stands accused of murdering two people after a California county jail allowed him to leave against the wishes of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
In a statement released Wednesday, ICE blamed the Santa Clara County Jail for ignoring a retainer for Fernando de Jesus Lopez-Garcia and releasing “a dangerous criminal alien back into the community.”
“ICE maintains cooperation with local law enforcement is essential to protecting public safety, and the agency aims to work cooperatively with local jurisdictions to ensure that criminal aliens are not released into U.S. communities to commit additional crimes,” read a statement from the agency. “Unfortunately, due to these dangerous sanctuary laws, two more people lost their lives, Nov. 22., allegedly at the hands of a criminal alien and repeat felon, lives that may have been saved had multiple previous immigration detainers been honored.”
Officials said Lopez-Garcia is charged with two counts of murder, three counts of attempted murder, battery on a spouse, and violation of a protective order. Police said they responded to calls about a stabbing that took place at a church, and one caller told dispatchers that there was “blood everywhere.”
Police said they found five victims inside and outside of the church with at least one stab wound each and that one man and one woman died.
The ICE statement noted that Lopez-Garcia was arrested by the San Jose Police Department on Sunday and had a criminal record, including convictions for “battery of a spouse, assault with a deadly weapon, inflicting corporal injury on a spouse, battery of an officer, and vandalism.”
At a press conference, San Jose Police Chief Eddie Garcia said Lopez-Garcia had been deported from the United States on three prior occasions before returning to California. “On his latest misdemeanor domestic violence offense in Santa Clara County, an immigration detainer was sent. Although notification would have been allowed under SB54, the California Values Act, it was not honored, and he was subsequently released,” Garcia said, according to KPIX-TV, a local CBS affiliate.
The ICE statement accused “sanctuary laws and local policies” of failing the community before listing a timeline of Lopez-Garcia’s interactions with law enforcement and ICE agents culminating in the murder of two people.
San Francisco ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations field office director David Jennings announced his frustration with the situation in the press release provided by ICE.
“Because of this recklessness, people lost their lives, allegedly at the hands of a repeat criminal and immigration offender,” Jennings said. “These are deaths that likely could have been prevented had local law enforcement cooperated with ICE, as we have so effectively done in years past, toward the common goal of public safety.”
