Jorge Armando Melendez-Gonzalez, 27, was arrested 10 times and has been charged with 19 different crimes in just over seven years. (Fox News; Fairfax County Police Department)
The agency said that Melendez-Gonzalez entered the U.S. illegally in June 2015. An immigration judge ordered his removal from the country just over a year later in October 2016.
Despite this, Melendez-Gonzalez stayed in the country for just over ten years, racking up a long list of offenses in Virginia. He has arrests for three counts of malicious shooting, unlawful wounding, use of a firearm in commission of a felony, assault and battery, assault on a family member, grand larceny, trespassing, possessing a false government identification, public intoxication, disturbing the peace and making a false statement to a law enforcement officer.
He has two felony convictions for unlawful wounding stemming from a 2023 shooting, which carry sentences of three years in confinement. However, his sentence was suspended down to a year.
According to a statement by the Fairfax County Police Department, detectives arrested Melendez-Gonzalez in August 2023 in connection with a shooting that injured three men outside a business in Falls Church, Virginia.
Fox News Digital reached out to Fairfax County Commonwealth Attorney Steve Descano, a Democrat, for the reason for Melendez-Gonzalez’s sentence being suspended. A spokesperson for the commonwealth’s attorney’s office declined to comment, referring Fox News Digital to the Fairfax County Sheriff’s Office, which the spokesperson said, "is responsible for handling ICE detainers."
SOCIAL MEDIA ERUPTS AFTER ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT SCREAMS DURING VIRAL DC ARREST: 'WHAT I VOTED FOR'
Steve Descano , Commonwealths Attorney-elect, Fairfax County, Virginia speaks at an event at the Center for American Progress about Virginias Newly Elected Progressive Prosecutors on Tuesday, December 17, 2019. (Getty Images)
DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin, however, placed the blame squarely on the county’s sanctuary policies.
"These sanctuary policies make Virginians less safe," McLaughlin told Fox News Digital.
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"Fairfax County refused to honor two ICE arrest detainers and chose to release this criminal back onto Virginia’s streets. Virginia sanctuary politicians protected this criminal illegal alien and allowed him to terrorize American citizens," she added.
"Thanks to the brave men and women of ICE law enforcement, this serial violent criminal with 10 previous arrests, is now off of Virginia’s streets," said McLaughlin.
Peter Pinedo is a politics writer for Fox News Digital.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/major-blue-county-hot-seat-after-violent-illegal-alien-arrested-10-times-finally-nabbed-ice