It is a complete outrage that the Maryland House of Delegates, just three days after the brutal and vicious rape of a 14-year-old Montgomery County high school student by illegal immigrants, proposed and passed legislation to establish the state of Maryland a so-called ‘Sanctuary State.’ Details continue to emerge, showing that these two individuals, one claiming to be 18-years-old, and the second claiming to be 17-years-old (though there is no documentation of their actual age), were previously detained by ICE, released and enrolled in school as freshmen alongside this young girl, because had they not, they would have been deported. In order to aid these two men in avoiding deportation, the Montgomery County School system welcomed them as freshmen, and placed them in classes alongside children as young as 13-years-old, creating the conditions for this horrific crime to take place on school property, in the boys bathroom.
The Montgomery County School District has taken a position of defense of their unwritten sanctuary policies, all while stonewalling requests for information by Federal agents and the Governor’s office. It is preposterous that the Maryland legislature would take Montgomery County’s failed policies statewide, and demonstrates the total disregard for basic decency and sensitivity to the torture this young girl experienced, that they would do so just days after her brutal rape.
Such Sanctuary policies in these cases only serve to protect the criminals while neglecting our duty to our citizens, our children, to their victims and potential victims. This is a matter of public safety and security. We need to know who is within our borders and who does not belong. The proposed legislation which was passed by the House of Delegates would make it more difficult for local, state, and federal law enforcement to do their jobs, and make our state a haven and target for illegal immigration.
Tonight my thoughts and prayers are with this young girl and her family. I hope that she is able to heal in every way she is able, and that she knows there are those of us in Maryland that care more for her pain and suffering, than for the protection of those that would cause it.
I am in full agreement with the Governor’s veto threat of any legislation that makes the State of Maryland a so-called sanctuary state. The Bill is currently being considered by the Maryland State Senate. I urge you to contact your state Senators encouraging them to vote against this irresponsible bill.
~ Wade
Dear Mr. Kach,
I received your heartfelt email about County Executive Kamenetz’s order regarding making Baltimore County a sanctuary county. In your email, you state “study after study show that the taxes paid are far less than what governments spends on providing services to illegal immigrants.” This may be true of some state and local governments, although “Collectively, they paid an estimated $10.6 billion to state and local taxes in 2010, according to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP), a research organization that works on tax policy issues.” Don’t you have access to actual data for Baltimore County? At the Federal level, SSA has stated ” For the year 2010, we estimate that the excess of tax revenue paid to the Trust Funds over benefits paid from these funds based on earnings of unauthorized workers is about $12 billion.”
The cumulative estimate of this kind of overpayment has been cited at > $100 billion and Steve Gross of SSA said this has actually kept SS solvent!
While I agree that unauthorized immigrants may at times put a strain on selected county services, it is important to state the problem fairly and accurately and not to leave out the sources of your statements.
I am a retired physician whose patients included authorized immigrants, so I do have some first hand understanding of the problem. And I can assure you I have seen the same kinds of rapes committed by our citizens, too.
I would suggest that a more helpful and focused response to the terrible rapes in Montgomery County, which I totally abhor as much as you do, would be to specifically define the exceptions to sanctuary status, such a felony crimes. What gets lost in the unnecessary hysteria, which your email sadly encourages, is the very real terror that the majority of law abiding unauthorized immigrants feel whenever they have any contact with police or other government officials. Since we are not about to just “round them all up and deport them all”, can’t we just leave the well behaved unauthorized immigrants alone and concentrate on the bad actors, something which Obama was already doing and which Trump/Sessions are well positioned to further enhance?
But for goodness sake, chill with all the fear mongering about unauthorized immigrants. If you want to protect Baltimore County from dangerous felons, there are so many more such citizens that are already here … Last I looked Hickey School is in Baltimore County. Go after the broken DJS why don’t you! That’s a real ongoing problem of much greater magnitude that never gets the kind of attention that these rare immigration cases garner.
Thank you for all you do for Baltimore County.