An immigration protection law may have allowed a man suspected of shooting his girlfriend and her teenage sons to remain in the United States, despite his criminal past, Putnam County Executive Kevin Byrne said Sunday on Newsmax.
"Sanctuary policies are dangerous and they're only there to shield those who are actively breaking the law," said Byrne on Newsmax's "Sunday Report." "We need to prioritize those law-abiding citizens [and] those lawful immigrants with permanent green card status."
Byrne was discussing the arrest of Fernando Andres Jimenez Meza, 40, a native of Chile who was charged last week with allegedly shooting his girlfriend and her sons, killing one of the boys, in Somers, New York.
Federal sources told the New York Post that Meza is an illegal immigrant who sneaked his way back into the country after he was deported 20 years ago at the U.S. border in California.
"The actual incident, the homicide, occurred just about five minutes away from my house over the county line in northern Westchester, in the town of Somers, a community that I had represented for six years when I was in the state legislature," Byrne said Sunday, noting that the call in the search for Meza went out at 9 a.m. Tuesday.
"We had to shut down the Putnam County Senior Center," he said. "Schools were on delay and then ultimately shut down. A lot of us had to make difficult decisions like, Are we taking our child to daycare or not? Fortunately, our brave men and women apprehended the suspect."
Meanwhile, the county's Immigration Protection Act, which had been vetoed by former Westchester County Executive Rob Astorino, was brought back into play after he left office, and Byrne said the timing was suspicious.
"From what we've seen in the report from the spokesperson and ICE that was reported, this individual was arrested for a DWI in September of 2018 and paid a $500 fine," he said. "That legislation in Westchester County that you cited, it passed on March 20, 2018, a few months before that DWI charge."
Byrne stressed that Putnam County, where Meza was nabbed, is not a sanctuary area, and last year passed a resolution to become a rule of law county.
Meza is being detained in Westchester County, but Byrne pointed out that New York state and New York City are both sanctuary locations.
"Sanctuary policies, quite frankly, they're stupid," he said. "Anything that prevents law enforcement from sharing information with other partners in law enforcement, including federal law enforcement, such as ICE, you're limiting our ability to keep our community safe. This is just another example."
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Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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