Illegal immigrant charged with child rape had been released a year earlier after assault arrest
By: Freeman Klopott
Examiner Staff Writer
April 22, 2009
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A year before Prince William County police say he raped an 8-year-old girl, court documents show an illegal immigrant from Honduras was released by Montgomery County police after being arrested for second-degree assault.
Marcos Banegas has been on the run since Feb. 16 when Prince William County police charged him with forcible sodomy and aggravated sexual battery of a Woodbridge girl.
But before moving to Prince William where police say he cut hair at a local salon, the 26-year-old was arrested by Montgomery County police. Banegas was accused of “violently” grabbing a stroller, causing the child inside to be shaken, police said in court documents. The incident allegedly occurred while Banegas was arguing with the child’s mother near the intersection of Muddy Branch Road and West Diamond Avenue in Gaithersburg.
The charges were later dropped, and Banegas was released. Had his name been sent to federal immigration authorities, as it was in Prince William County, Banegas would have been detained for deportation hearings.
Earlier this year, Montgomery County Executive Ike Leggett altered the county’s long-standing policy of not sending the names of those arrested to Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Pushed by a series of high-profile killings allegedly committed by illegal immigrants, Leggett said in February the county would now send to ICE the names of people accused of violent offenses.
Leggett said the county would rely on the state’s legal list of violent offenses. But second-degree assault is not included on that list, and Banegas’ name would not have been turned over to ICE under the new policy, Leggett’s spokesman Patrick Lacefield said.
“People need to be held responsible for the crimes they commit,” Lacefield said. “Reporting every single crime would be putting county police in the position of enforcing federal immigration policy,” he added, calling on the federal government to reform immigration laws.
Jon Feere, a policy analyst at the Center for Immigration Studies, said Banegas’ release “is a perfect example” of local governments failing to enforce immigration law.
“Legal residents are going to have their lives threatened by people who are in the country illegally if those people aren’t deported after having committed even the most minor of offenses,” Feere said. “Montgomery County and Maryland as a whole are slowly realizing sanctuary policies are bad policies.”
