A Dallas woman accused of killing a Wichita mother and taking her baby was in the country illegally when she was released from a Kansas jail this summer before immigration officials had a chance to request she be held, law enforcement authorities said Wednesday.
From New York Post
The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement did not receive the July 25 list of arrests from the Sedgwick County sheriff’s office showing Yesenia Sesmas’ name on it until the following day, and by that time she had already been released from local custody, said ICE spokesman Carl Rusnok. The agency would have asked that she be detained if Sesmas, a Mexican national, had still been in jail, he said.
Sesmas posted bond and was released less than 24 hours after her arrest in that case, said Col. Brenda Dietzman, undersheriff for the Sedgwick County sheriff’s office.
Even if ICE had made the request, it is not clear that the county would have honored it. Sedgwick County Sheriff Jeff Easter announced in 2014 that the jail would no longer honor ICE requests to hold inmates unless the agency presents a warrant or court order requiring them to hold an inmate in custody longer. The policy change stems from a 3rd Circuit appeals court ruling finding a Pennsylvania jail unjustly held a man on suspicion he might be in the country unlawfully after he posted bail. Several jails across the country have refused to automatically honor ICE requests after the American Civil Liberties Union warned they could be sued.
Now if Sedgwick County gets a request a hold on an inmate, jail officials call the agency about 2 to 3 hours before that person is released, and tell ICE “if you want them come get them,” Dietzman said.
Sedgwick County officials say they have no record of an ICE request to hold Sesmas when she was in custody in Kansas in the summer for allegedly threatening another Wichita woman with a knife and trying to hold that woman’s two daughters for ransom.
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