The head of the national Border Patrol union said in Senate testimony Wednesday that the alleged rape last week of a teenage girl by two recent arrivals from Central America would not have happened if the Border Patrol had done their job.
Henry Sanchez-Milian, 18, and Jose Montano, 17, were arrested last week for allegedly raping a 14-year old girl in the bathroom of a Maryland high school. Sanchez-Milian is in the country illegally, and ICE won’t release Montano’s immigration status because he is a minor. Sanchez-Milian is from Guatemala and Montano is from El Salvador. Both arrived in the U.S. in the past couple of months.
“Had we had done our job that 14-year old girl wouldn’t have been raped. Period. That’s all there is to it,” National Border Patrol Council president Brandon Judd said before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.
Judd, who is currently a Border Patrol agent, added that had the agency kept Sanchez-Milian in custody “that rape wouldn’t have happened.” Under the Obama administration the standard operating practice for the Border Patrol was to “catch and release” illegal immigrants they caught.
“We failed the citizens of this great nation by not securing the border,” Judd said.
White House spokesman Sean Spicer was asked about the rape Wednesday and said, “It’s horrendous, horrible, and disgusting.”