Jose Montano and Henry Sanchez Milian, the two teenagers accused of taking turns raping a 14-year-old girl at Rockville High School in Maryland last week, were in federal custody in 2016 after crossing the border illegally. Then they were released to their relatives in Maryland.
Montano crossed the border to look for his uncle; Milian crossed to look for his dad.
Border Patrol officials stopped the teens near McAllen, Texas, detained them for less than the legal limit of 72 hours, then remanded them to Health and Human Services’ Office for Refugee Resettlement, which then released them.
Because of federal law, the two illegal immigrant suspects were admitted to public schools. Montano enrolled at Rockville High in August; Sanchez Milian enrolled in September.
Border agents had sent notices to the suspects to appear in immigration court, but Immigration and Customs Enforcement never filed charges against Sanchez Milian because he had no criminal record and “no known gang affiliations.” Montano was a minor at the time; he has since been classified as an adult in the rape case.
According to prosecutors, the two illegal immigrants forced the girl into a boys’ bathroom and raped her repeatedly despite her cries of pain and pleas for them to stop.
On Wednesday, Sanchez Milian’s defense attorney, Andrew Jezic, said the encounter was “consensual.”
Matthew Bourke, a spokesman for Homeland Security’s U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, acknowledged that the agency had not filed for deportation against Sanchez Milian, arguing there are “500 other cases ICE is responsible for in the Baltimore Area of Responsibility … He was a noncriminal alien who had been released from detention with no known gang affiliations. The priority to prompt immigration court to review a case has been whether the alien has a criminal conviction or if they’re in detention.”