Migrant Who Shot Two NYPD Officers Entered the Country Illegally, Had Immigration Case Dismissed

AP Photo/John Minchillo

Monday a 19-year-old illegal immigrant named Bernardo Raul Castro-Mata shot two police officers who tried to stop him riding his moped down the street the wrong way. Castro-Mata's story reads like a tale intended to point out everything wrong with Joe Biden's handling of border policy. We'll get to that in a moment but first here's what happened yesterday.

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Officers investigating a robbery pattern involving mopeds and scooters in East Elmhurst tried to pull over a person going the wrong way on a moped near 23rd Avenue and 82nd Street just after 1:30 a.m., police said, but the man jumped off and ran away.

The two 26-year-old officers chased him several blocks, and NYPD officials say he fired at them multiple times during the pursuit. One officer, Richard Yarusso, was hit in his bulletproof vest, which stopped the bullet; the other, Christopher Abreu, took a bullet to the leg...

Investigators said the 19-year-old from Venezuela has no prior arrests in New York City but is a suspect in two violent robberies in Queens on May 21. In both cases, suspects on mopeds used force to rob victims of various items, including purses, phones and debit cards, according to three senior law enforcement officials.

Apparently, these moped crimes are on the rise in New York and while Castro-Mata hasn't been convicted of that crime yet, he is a suspect in two such robberies. Today the NY Post reports that Castro-Mata is also suspected of being connected to a notorious gang that is involved in exactly this sort of crime.

Investigators suspect Mata is a member of the gang because of a tattoo he has of a clock attached to an anchor — a favored Tren de Aragua ink — and some social-media postings, sources said...

The gang — infamous for its cruelty, including for how easily it kills women — has been having members pose as asylum-seeking migrants to infiltrate the US southern border, sources have said.

The syndicate then organizes lucrative rings of moped-riding bandits around cities such as the Big Apple to snatch such items including cell phones, sources said.

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Again, this hasn't been proven in court but clearly Castro-Mata is not a good guy and is willing to shoot at police. So why is he here at all? You can thank the Biden administration for that.

Castro-Mata entered the US illegally through Eagle Pass, Texas, last July, a spokesperson for ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations in New York confirmed to CNN...

The US Border Patrol “released Castro-Mata on his own recognizance” and ordered him to report to the nearest enforcement and removal operations office, according to ICE. 

The border is so overwhelmed that many migrants are simply released with a promise that they'll show up later to begin the process of making their asylum case before a judge. In Castro-Mata's case, he apparently did that and quickly had his case dismissed.

Bernardo Castro Mata, 19 — who shot one officer in the chest and another in the leg after they attempted to stop his moped in Queens — had a hearing in Chicago on May 6 where an immigration judge closed his case, according to ICE sources.

The information emerged less than 24 hours after The Post exposed the Biden administration’s dismissal of asylum cases and deportation orders against 350,000 migrants because they didn’t have criminal records or aren’t deemed national security threats.

Those migrants are also under no obligation to leave the country and are no longer monitored by Immigration and Customs Enforcement [ICE] — making them undocumented.

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At the moment, no one is saying why Castro-Mata's case was dismissed but the NY Post is suggesting that this is part of a "mass amnesty" which they reported about on Sunday.

Data show that since 2022, more than 350,000 asylum cases filed by migrants have been closed by the US government if the applicants don’t have a criminal record or are otherwise not deemed a threat to the country.

This means that while the migrants are not granted or denied asylum — their cases are “terminated without a decision on the merits of their asylum claim” — they are removed from the legal system and no longer required to check in with authorities.

The move allows them to legally, indefinitely roam the US without fear of deportation, effectively letting them slip through the cracks.

Again, we don't know for certain but this could be why Castro-Mata had his case closed. The immigration system is overwhelmed and many migrants can wait years for a decision, so the Biden administration is apparently giving migrants who don't have a criminal history a pass. They aren't legal residents at that point but they also aren't asked to leave. They are just in some sort of mass migration grey zone. Clearly in Castro-Mata's case that was a very bad decision. Not only is he possibly a gang member and possibly a thief, he's also an attempted cop killer.

Yarusso was tussling with the suspect for the weapon when the gun discharged, striking the officer in his vest on his chest, sources said...

Yarusso, still reeling from being shot in his vest, “was more concerned about his partner” and desperately worked to apply a tourniquet to Abreu’s leg to stem the bleeding, said Police Benevolent Association President Patrick Hendry.

He ended up putting his bleeding comrade in their police car and rushed him to Elmhurst, sources said.

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Luckily, both of the officers he shot will survive but this very easily could have been worse.

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