State Senator Brent Taylor (R-Memphis) on Friday said the recent arrests of illegal immigrants for “corpse rape” and “shooting spree” charges illustrates why Tennessee lawmakers passed legislation earlier this year which makes it felony offense for public officials to establish sanctuary cities.
Taylor made the statement while sharing a May 1 press release by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which announced the arrests of illegal immigrants Felix Rojas in New York and Enoc Martinez in Shelby County, Tennessee.
According to DHS, Martinez (pictured above) is a Honduran national who arrived in the United States as an unaccompanied minor in 2014, when he was placed with a sponsor in Memphis by the U.S. Office of Refugee Resettlement after being apprehended by U.S. Border Patrol.
Martinez has been charged with five counts of attempted first-degree murder after a shooting spree in Memphis last month, when Fox 13Â reported three people were wounded in a shooting spree that unfolded in under 20 minutes.
The announcement of Martinez’s arrest came in the same press release when the agency announced its apprehension of Rojas, who became the subject of national headlines when he was arrested while allegedly sexually abusing a corpse.
DHS reported that Rojas (pictured here) illegally entered the country on multiple occasions dating back to 1988, and that he was “charged with rape and grand larceny for raping a corpse on the subway near Whitehall Street Station in Manhattan.”
Taylor, responding to the arrests, noted that Tennessee has imposed laws to prohibit local officials from defying federal immigration laws.
“Shelby County will NOT be a sanctuary for violent illegal aliens,” wrote Taylor in a post to X. “I was proud to co-sponsor the Centralized Immigration Enforcement Division within the Tennessee Department of Safety.”
Taylor referred to the immigration bill approved during a special session of the Tennessee General Assembly earlier this year, which in addition to authorizing the creation of the Centralized Immigration Enforcement Division (CIED), made it a felony offense for local lawmakers to pass legislation aimed at creating a legal sanctuary for illegal immigrants.
The state lawmaker then alluded to the confrontation between Nashville Mayor Freddie O’Connell and U.S. Representative Andy Ogles (R-TN-05) over the mayor’s actions in response to federal immigration response in Tennessee’s capital.
“This legislation will enforce immigration policies and keep local government leaders like Nashville Mayor, Freddie O-Connell, from going against federal policies,” wrote Taylor.
In response to an immigration enforcement operation that saw nearly 200 arrests, O’Connell signed an executive order which required government employees to inform the mayor and Metro Nashville Office of New Americans of any interaction with federal immigration officials. He also announced a new “Belonging Fund” aimed at supporting illegal immigrants facing deportation proceedings, which was seeded with funds from nonprofits that received millions in federal funding from Metro Nashville.
Ogles has requested the House Judiciary Committee and Homeland Security Committee open probes to investigate whether these actions were legal, suggesting O’Connell could be aiding and abetting illegal immigrants.
“Keep in mind, there’s federal dollars that go to the city of Nashville and again, if they’re funneling that money to a nonprofit that’s aiding illegals and evading federal law enforcement, that would be a crime,” Ogles said during a recent appearance on The Michael Patrick Leahy Show. “So there’s a lot to unpack here, and we’re being proactive and holding them accountable.”
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Tom Pappert is the lead reporter for The Tennessee Star, and also reports for The Pennsylvania Daily Star and The Arizona Sun Times. Follow Tom on X/Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].
They are only poor, down trodden people who are fleeing their own country due to political persecution and want to come to America to make a better life for themselves. Right, and monkeys might fly out of my butt.