NEW BEDFORD — A Massachusetts Democrat sheriff let a Honduran illegal immigrant with a gun charge walk out of his jail on bail. Then he went public trashing ICE for asking him not to.
Bristol County Sheriff Paul Heroux got the detainer request from ICE's Boston field office after New Bedford police arrested Jose Raul Martinez-Alvarado on June 7 with a firearm and a large-capacity magazine.
Cops found him after a 911 open line call at a Viall Street address. He tried to resist. He was charged with unlawful possession of a large-capacity firearm, unlawful possession of a large-capacity feeding device, resisting arrest, and carrying a firearm without a license.
ICE wanted him held for transfer. Heroux said no.
Then Heroux went on the record.
What Heroux said
"It's very clear that what ICE was trying to do was intimidate me, or bully me," Heroux told Boston.com in comments published Tuesday.
"Even with new leadership," he added of ICE, "it remains amateur hour."
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"The law is on my side on this. Period," Heroux said. "What the public needs to know is a detainer is a request, and it's a request for us to break the law. If they think I broke the law, they can take me to court over it."
Except the law is not exactly on his side
Heroux is right on the technical legal question. Under the 2017 Lunn v. Commonwealth ruling from the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, local law enforcement cannot hold a person solely on a civil ICE detainer. He is also right that Martinez-Alvarado was released on bail by a state court, not by his jail.
But the SJC ruling did not say a sheriff cannot pick up the phone. Massachusetts sheriffs retain the discretion to notify ICE before a person walks out of state custody. Heroux chose not to.
That distinction — must vs. may — did not make it into his interview.
What Heroux left out
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While Heroux was on the record accusing ICE of "amateur hour," ICE was already doing what the sheriff would not. Federal agents tracked Martinez-Alvarado back to New Bedford and re-arrested him on July 2 during enforcement operations, according to ICE Boston's public account.
The Honduran national is in federal custody.
The sheriff who called ICE "amateur hour" needed those same amateurs to clean up after him — running down, on their own, the suspect Heroux had let walk out of Bristol County jail. Bristol County covers Fall River, Taunton, Attleboro, Dartmouth, and New Bedford. Any one of those neighborhoods is where Martinez-Alvarado could have ended up if ICE had not caught him first.
The political context
Heroux beat Republican Sheriff Thomas Hodgson — one of the most vocal ICE-cooperating sheriffs in the country — in November 2022 by 50.9% to 49.1%. Roughly 4,300 votes. He is the first Democrat to run the Bristol County Sheriff's Office in 25 years.
He campaigned on "smart, humane" corrections. He is running for re-election in 2028.
The federal agents Heroux mocked as "amateur hour" had already tracked down and re-arrested the Honduran national by the time he gave the interview. Bristol County voters can decide who is running amateur hour.
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