NEW YORK – A federal decide in New York sentenced a Dominican nationwide, Monday, to 45 months incarceration and three years of supervised launch following his conviction for assault on a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) deportation officer.
On the morning of March 3, 2019, deportation officers from the ICE Enforcement Elimination Operations (ERO) New York Discipline Workplace tried to arrest Christopher Santos-Felix, 29, at his residence within the Bronx.
Courtroom paperwork present that Santos-Felix was initially cooperative because the deportation officers tried to take him into custody. Nonetheless, after the officers eliminated his handcuffs to permit him to placed on an article of clothes, Santos-Felix pushed an officer earlier than working right into a bed room. The fugitive operations group members adopted him into the bed room the place he turned assaultive and combative. In the course of the commotion, Santos-Felix bit off the tip of the ring finger of one of many officers trying to restrain him.
The deportation officer was handled at a neighborhood hospital for his accidents, and returned to full obligation, a number of weeks later.
“This incident is a major instance of a few of the risks that ICE officers are uncovered to when conducting focused enforcement operations,” mentioned Deputy Discipline Workplace Director Darius L. Reeves, ERO New York’s performing subject workplace director. “It additionally serves as a reminder to unlawfully current criminals that deportation officers are federal legislation enforcement officers, and an assault on a deportation officer is a really critical crime that may end up in hefty jail sentences.”
Upon the completion of his federal jail sentence, ICE will take custody of Santos-Felix to start elimination proceedings. Santos-Felix’s aggravated felony conviction for assault on a federal officer makes him a precedence for elimination.
Santos-Felix entered the U.S. legally, as a customer for pleasure in June 2015, however didn’t depart inside the time allowed for his authorized go to. He was convicted in 2016, in New York for driving whereas intoxicated.
In September 2018, Santos-Felix was arrested and charged in New York for third-degree assault and prison obstruction of respiratory or blood circulation – apply strain. On the day of that arrest, ICE lodged a detainer with the New York Metropolis Police Division (NYPD), however the detainer was not honored, and he was launched from NYPD custody.
ICE is now implementing the interim civil immigration enforcement priorities directed by the U.S. Division of Homeland Safety (DHS) to focus its restricted sources on threats to nationwide safety, border safety and public security. ICE continues to hold out its obligation to implement the legal guidelines of the USA in accordance with the Division’s nationwide safety and public security mission.