Philadelphia is like a lot of major cities, declaring itself to be a ‘sanctuary’ city for all immigrants, by which they meant illegal immigrants. The city government was not going to cooperate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Well, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported some good news on that front.

Charges against a man were dismissed. Then a Philly police officer escorted him into ICE custody.

A judge had dismissed charges against the Dominican National when, according to his lawyer, court and sheriff staff said he was wanted by ICE officers. A Philly police officer then stepped in.

by Samantha Melamed and Max Marin | Wednesday, April 23, 2025 | 12.01 PM EDT | Updated: 5:47 PM EDT

A Philadelphia police officer escorted a Dominican national out of Philadelphia’s criminal courthouse and into the custody of U.S. immigration authorities last week, shortly after a judge had dismissed all criminal charges against the defendant.

The Defender Association of Philadelphia and other advocates questioned what the apparent cooperation with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) meant for Philadelphia’s so-called sanctuary city policies.

Jean Carlos Brito-Munoz, 30, was arrested on April 2 for allegedly carrying a concealed firearm without a license in the city’s Juniata section, according to police and court records. But Municipal Court Judge Bradley K. Moss dismissed the felony charge on April 17 for lack of evidence.

Lack of evidence? How, exactly, is there a “lack of evidence” against someone arrested for carrying a concealed firearm without a license? Was a firearm actually recovered and confiscated?

At that time, Brito-Munoz would have been free to go.

Instead, a Philadelphia police officer in the courtroom informed court staff and sheriff’s deputies that Brito-Munoz was wanted on another arrest warrant, said Brendan Kenney, spokesperson for the First Judicial District.

According to Brito-Munoz’s public defender, a sheriff and a court staffer instructed Brito-Munoz to remain in the courtroom. The defender instructed her client to leave. The police officer then stepped in and escorted Brito-Munoz outside, to awaiting federal authorities. He remains in immigration detention at the Federal Detention Center in Philadelphia.

Wait, what? Informed that Mr Brito-Munoz was wanted on another arrest warrant, his public defender instructed her client to leave? Can an attorney advise her client to elude arrest?

A police department spokesperson, Eric Gripp, said that the Spanish-speaking officer “offered to walk with Brito-Munoz downstairs for translation purposes” but did not detain him.

Brito-Munoz, Gripp said, surrendered on his own. The department did not immediately explain where the officer was assigned, what he was doing in the courtroom that day, or why he alerted other officials in the courtroom. A person with knowledge of the situation said the officer was detailed to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency, which has been working with ICE in other jurisdictions. That source was not authorized to discuss the matter and spoke on the condition of anonymity.

The article continues to tell both of the newspaper’s remaining readers that while Philly is supposed to be a ‘sanctuary city,’ ICE has been able to detain illegal immigrants — the newspaper used the term ‘someone’ — outside the courthouse, though such did not involve any action by the police. The city’s inept former Mayor, Jim Kenney, who spent eight years in office letting crime rise and the drug problems fester and grow, issued an edict instructing city law enforcement officers not to honor immigration detainment orders, and ICE (supposedly) has no access to the Police Department’s arrests database or records.

Mayor Cherelle Parker Mullins has not reaffirmed the city’s sanctuary status since taking office, but she has not rescinded her predecessor’s orders.

Regardless of what happened in the Brito-Munoz case, it is clear that information has been flowing between local police and federal law enforcement.

Scores of deportation cases filed in the U.S. Eastern District of Pennsylvania in recent years followed a pattern: First, a person is arrested by the Philadelphia Police Department or another local department for offenses ranging from drunken driving to drug dealing to assault. Then, police run the defendant’s fingerprints through a federal database. If the person has previously been deported, that automatically pings ICE, according to court paperwork.

In other cases, ICE agents made arrests in the field while serving on a joint drug task force in collaboration with Philadelphia police or the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s Office — using portable fingerprint scanners to immediately identify those who had previously been deported, according to court records.

Heh! You can run, but you cannot hide!

Thus far, the newspaper has not told us that the unnamed police officer in question acted alone or violated department orders. I’m waiting for columnists Jenice Armstrong, Helen Ubiñas, and Will Bunch to demand that he be identified and fired, but, as of Thursday morning, I haven’t seen their spittle-flecked wrath in print. Miss Armstrong’s latest is “It’s time for a Black pope for the Catholic Church. Actually, it’s way past time,” but I’m pretty sure that she’d eat those words if that black pope turned out to be Robert Cardinal Sarah! 🙂

I’m old enough to remember when our friends on the left cheered the Supreme Court refused to hear the case of Lozano v City of Hazleton, in which the appellate court invalidated Hazleton, Pennsylvania’s, ordinance seeking to keep illegal immigrants out of the city. The court said that immigration was the exclusive authority of the federal government, and lower government levels had no authority to intercede. Yet those same people on the left want to use state and local ordinances to interfere with the federal government’s exclusive authority over immigration when it comes to protecting illegal immigrants.

I definitely hope that this Philadelphia Police officer doesn’t get in any trouble for doing his duty.