ICE battling alleged rapists and Massachusetts sanctuary city roadblocks

ICE agents stymied by sanctuary city loopholes keep tracking down drug dealers and accused rapists living illegally in Massachusetts despite the roadblocks from Boston to the Berkshires.

Two new arrests include a 21-year-old Guatemalan national charged with rape of child by force (two related counts) and indecent assault and battery against a minor, according to immigration officials. That suspect was arrested Nov. 12 in Great Barrington.

Mynor Stiven De Paz-Munoz entered the U.S. illegally on Sept. 24, 2020, near Eagle Pass, Texas, Immigration and Customs Enforcement said. Great Barrington Police Department arrested De Paz-Munoz on Feb. 29 — “ignoring” an ICE detainer — and letting him slip away.

Immigration officers with the Boston-based ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations caught up to him earlier this month and he is now held facing charges first, deportation second.

“Mynor Stiven De Paz-Munoz stands accused of horrifically victimizing a Massachusetts child and represents a significant threat to our neighborhoods,” said acting Field Office Director Patricia H. Hyde of ERO Boston. “We owe it to the children of our New England communities to prioritize public safety above everything else. ERO Boston stands committed to arresting and removing egregious noncitizen threats from the community.”

A 42-year-old Colombian charged in Pittsfield with rape of a child by force, statutory rape, and aggravated rape against a minor is also now in ICE custody.

Billy Erney Buitrago-Bustos was seized on Nov. 15 in Pittsfield and was also allowed to slip into the system unbeknownst to ICE.

ICE said the Berkshire County Jail and House of Correction in Pittsfield, however, “honored the immigration detainer and released Buitrago-Bustos into the custody of ERO Boston Nov. 15 after he posted bail.”

U.S. Customs and Border Protection admitted Buitrago-Bustos into the U.S. May 4, 2016, at the John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York, but he failed to depart “under the terms of his visa.”

The lack of cooperation by some in state government comes as Gov. Maura Healey and Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, Somerville’s mayor and City Council and other communities — now including Natick — refuse to help ICE officers. Many of the victims, ICE agents tell the Herald, are members of the immigrant community, too, who are here obeying the law.

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