Federal immigration authorities on Tuesday arrested an illegal migrant who had been charged with raping a disabled child and had previously been released by a sanctuary jurisdiction on low bond.
Deportation officers apprehended Cory Bernard Alvarez, a 26-year-old Haitian national living in the U.S. unlawfully, near his residence in Brockton, Massachusetts, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials confirmed in a press release. Alvarez has been wanted by the agency since he was charged in March for allegedly raping a 15-year-old girl at a migrant housing location in Massachusetts, a state with “sanctuary” policies concerning ICE cooperation.
“Cory Bernard Alvarez has been charged with victimizing a minor in a Massachusetts migrant shelter,” Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) Boston Field Office Director Todd Lyons stated. “He will have his day in court and ERO Boston will continue to cooperate with the criminal court system in Massachusetts, but we cannot allow any significant noncitizen threat to the children of our communities to potentially reoffend.”
“ERO Boston will continue to prioritize public safety by arresting and removing egregious noncitizen offenders from New England,” Lyons continued.
The Rockland Police Department in Massachusetts arrested the Haitian national on March 14, and he was charged with raping a disabled 15-year-old girl at a Comfort Inn that was being utilized for migrant housing. ICE lodged an immigration detainer for Alvarez with the Plymouth County Sheriff’s Office later that day.
Despite the severity of the charges, the Plymouth County Superior Court of Brockton ignored the ICE detainer on Alvarez and released him on a $500 bond, according to ICE.
Deportation officers were able to arrest the Haitian national in Brockton, and he remains in ICE custody, the agency confirmed on Tuesday.
Alvarez arrived legally in the U.S. in 2023 through the CHNV program, the Plymouth County District Attorney’s Office confirmed to the Daily Caller News Foundation. That program — which is a mass-parole program for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans created by the Biden-Harris administration — was put on pause earlier this month by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) after an internal audit discovered massive fraud by applicants.
Local authorities expressed frustration with the CHNV program in a Tuesday statement.
“As part of the Alvarez case, for months now, our office has repeatedly asked questions of state and federal officials about specifics of the CHNV process,” the Plymouth County District Attorney’s Office stated. “We have received little to no answers.”
“There is clearly a reason that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has paused the issuance of travel authorizations for new CHNV beneficiaries while it undertakes a massive review of the process,” Plymouth County continued.
The entire state of Massachusetts — which is currently dealing with an asylum housing crisis — is labeled as a “sanctuary” jurisdiction for illegal migrants by the Center for Immigration Studies, citing a 2017 court ruling that largely prohibits local jails from holding a criminal migrant in their custody at the request of federal immigration authorities.
