US Immigration and Customs Enforcement says that less than a month ago, a judge threw out the immigration case of an illegal immigrant who is accused of shooting two New York City police officers on Monday.
Police say that 19-year-old Venezuelan Bernardo Raul Castro-Mata shot and killed two police officers who tried to stop him for riding his scooter in the wrong way in Queens. The cops were treated at the hospital and sent home later that same day.
A representative for ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations in New York told CNN that Castro-Mata came into the US illegally through Eagle Pass, Texas, in July of last year. He was let go and told to go to immigration court, where his case was later thrown out.
ICE says that the US Border Patrol “released Castro-Mata on his own recognizance” and told him to go to the closest office for enforcement and removal operations. A spokesperson for the Department of Justice said in a statement that on May 6, an immigration judge threw out Castro-Mata’s removal procedures.
It was not clear from ICE why Castro-Mata’s case was thrown out.
A spokesperson for ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations said that an immigration detainer has been put in place against Castro-Mata and that he is still being held after the killing.
People who are not citizens but are caught for a crime and taken into custody by the state or local government are usually given immigration detainers.
City officials say that more than 200,000 undocumented immigrants have come to New York City since the spring of 2022, when many of them were sent north from Mexico by officials in some US border states. This is when the killing happened.
The city is still taking care of more than 65,000 people in more than 200 emergency shelters, according to Mayor Eric Adams’s office. Adams has asked the federal government to do more to help pay for the costs of the migrant problem.
Adams spoke to reporters Tuesday about the migrant surge and said, “You just gotta be honest about this. Everyone wants to romanticize this issue and just act like, ‘Oh, it’s no big deal.'” “No, no.” This government is trying to solve a very important problem, and we need to do the same.
Castro-Mata was shot in the leg during a gunfight with police. Joe Kenny, the chief of detectives for the NYPD, says he is expected to heal.
The shooting happened on Monday while the police were looking into a pattern of robberies in Queens involving people on mopeds and bikes, according to Edward Caban, the commissioner of the New York Police Department.
Kennedy said at a news conference on Monday that Castro-Mata is an illegal immigrant who lives in Queens in a former hotel that has been turned into a shelter for immigrants.
The Queens District Attorney’s Office said on Monday that Castro-Mata had not been charged and did not have a lawyer. CNN was told by the office that he will be given a lawyer for his upcoming arraignment unless he gets one himself.
On Monday, police saw a man later identified as Castro-Mata driving a moped down a street in the wrong direction. They tried to pull him over, but he ran away, and the police chased him on foot for several blocks, Caban said.
Based on Caban, Castro-Mata shot at the police officers, who then fired back.
The first cop was hit in the leg, and the second officer was hit in the bullet-proof vest.
Castro-Mata has never been arrested in New York City before, but Kenny said at the news conference that he is a suspect in several thefts in Queens. Kenny said he was riding a motorcycle that wasn’t registered.
“People are breaking the law all over the city on scooters and bikes that look the same.” “Some of these crimes are shootings, robberies, and phone thefts,” Kenny said.
Kenny says that police have found 80 “robbery patterns” across the city, which include hundreds of crimes where people rode scooters or bicycles.
