Daily Detroit News – It was reported that an illegal immigrant was caught in a state-funded hotel room with an AR-15 and about $1 million worth of fentanyl. This has led a Massachusetts state senator to question the state’s emergency housing aid program.
Tomás Leonardo Andujar Sanchez, 28, from the Dominican Republic, was caught by Revere Police on December 27. He was later charged with 11 crimes in Chelsea District Court.
Ten of the charges were linked to gun possession, including one for being a “alien” with a gun, and one was for having about 10 pounds of the pharmaceutical opioid.
Sanchez was also charged in federal court in Massachusetts on Wednesday with having more than 400 grams of fentanyl with the plan to sell it and having a gun without a permit.
Federal officials say that while he was staying at the Quality Inn in Revere, five kilograms of what they think was fentanyl, an assault rifle in the style of an AR, ammunition, two rifle magazines, digital scales, and latex gloves were found in his room.
An agency news release said that Enforcement and Removal Operations Boston at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement thought the drugs were worth about $1 million all together. After Sanchez was arrested, local cops called the agency and found that he had come to the U.S. illegally.
Sanchez was charged on December 30 and was not given bail. Judge Jane Prince told the court to keep the papers secret, but federal court records showed some information about Sanchez’s arrest.
Around 6:30 a.m. on December 27, Sanchez’s girlfriend called the police in Revere to say that he had drugs and a long, black gun hidden under a pink suitcase in their hotel room.
The woman told the cops that she and Sanchez had been staying at the Quality Inn for three months and that they got the room through a program for refugees.
The police went into Sanchez’s room while he was sleeping, woke him up, and put handcuffs on him.
A Drug Enforcement Administration task force officer wrote in federal court records that they then found fentanyl, an assault rifle in the style of the AR-15, ammunition, digital scales, and latex scales, all of which are widely used to sell drugs.
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The Boston Herald was told by the Executive Office of Housing & Livable Communities that Sanchez and his family had been staying at the Revere Quality Inn since October 15.
It was told by the office that warrant checks are done on its emergency aid residences every 30 days and that there is always security at the hotels used for the program.
“EA shelters will not stand for any kind of criminal behavior,” the office told Boston 25. “We took immediate action to terminate this individual from the EA system, and we confirmed with federal immigration officials that they have lodged a detainer.”
Nearby is Downtown Boston, whose Democratic Mayor Michelle Wu has said that the city’s sanctuary laws “make everyone safer.” The shelter is only a short drive away. Wu, who was criticized for not inviting White people to a holiday party, did not answer Fox News Digital’s multiple calls for comment on the situation with the migrants.
The governor, Maura Healey, was angry about what happened and said, “It’s outrageous that this person used our shelter system to commit a crime.”
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Healey asked that all shelters, starting with the Quality Inn Hotel in Revere, be inspected. She also asked for a “full review” of the state’s processes for taking people into shelters.
Sanctuary policies are in place in both Boston and Massachusetts, and Wu and Healey have both promised to fight President-elect Trump’s plans to crack down on illegal immigrants.
State Sen. Ryan Fattman asked Sanchez how he was able to use the program while some of his voters who were born in the United States were not.
“Just yesterday, a mother of two had her house burned down in my neighborhood.” She also can’t go to a shelter because we’ve chosen to help everyone. Fattman told. “I mean, this is crazy.”
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