Sandy MaloneWashington, DC – The four-times-deported illegal immigrant who painted swastikas all over Union Station during the week of international remembrance for the Holocaust will not be deported from the United States.
A U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) spokesman told FOX News that 34-year-old Mexican national Geraldo Pando first entered the country illegally as a juvenile in 1990.
Pando was arrested the first of many times in Colorado in 2006 and deported.
ICE said he returned to the United States illegally multiple times and was deported again in 2007, 2014, and 2017, FOX News reported.
Pando has a 35-page criminal history in Colorado alone for crimes ranging from drug possession to theft, according to the Washington Examiner.
ICE did not put a detainer on the graffiti artist who spray-painted anti-Semitic slurs all over the largest transportation hub in the nation’s capital at about 12:45 a.m. on Jan. 28, which would indicate the intention to deport Pando again after he is released from custody.
The ICE spokesperson told FOX News that DC was considered a “non-cooperative jurisdiction” and was known as a “sanctuary city.”
“ICE has not issued a detainer on Pando because the District of Columbia is a non-cooperative jurisdiction and the Washington D.C. jail is barred from honoring ICE detainers due to a federal District Court ruling, and city ordinance,” the spokesperson said.
We are disturbed by this video of a swastika taken this morning just outside @wmata at DC’s Union Station. This antisemitic and hateful symbol has no place in our society, and to find it in our city the week of International Holocaust Remembrance Day is particularly offensive. pic.twitter.com/5sEyNWJ1vk
— The Jewish Federation of Greater Washington (@JFGW) January 28, 2022
Police also identified Pando as the vandal who sprayed-painted graffiti on buildings on 5th Street, NW, north of New York Avenue, and on nearby blocks of L Street and Massachusetts Avenue, NW, later the same day that he vandalized Union Station.
Pando was arrested for the graffiti and charged with displaying certain emblems and defacing public and private property, The Washington Post reported.
Officials said at the time of his arrest that police were investigating the swastikas painted on Union Station “as potentially being motivated in whole or in part by hate or bias.”
Charging documents showed police identified the suspect using surveillance video, The Washington Post reported.
U.S. Capitol Police recognized the suspect and helped Amtrak police find Pando where he was camped in a tent just yards away in front of Union Station, according to the arrest affidavit.
DC Metropolitan Police Chief Robert J. Contee III said the incident was being investigated as a “hate crime” but said that investigators thought that Pando might be having “some mental health challenges,” The Washington Post reported.
ICE’s decision not to issue a detainer to deport Pando upon his release was just the latest example of the significant restrictions President Joe Biden’s administration has placed on immigration enforcement, FOX News reported.
Under President Biden, ICE can only deport the most recent border crossers, aggravated felons, and national security threats.
The administration has also barred immigration enforcement in certain places and banned workplace enforcement raids, FOX News reported.
Holly Matkin
