Two arrests in less than a week for egregious violent yet preventable crimes point out the utter madness of states and local governments continuing to adopt, follow, and even expand sanctuary policies to protect illegal and criminal aliens from federal immigration authorities. Though both were in California, the problem is not unique to the Golden State. Across the country, sanctuary policies continue to protect criminal aliens at the expense of law-abiding members of the public.

In Whittier on July 11, Alejandro Alvarez Villegas allegedly tried to murder his wife with a chainsaw in front of their three young children. Miraculously, she is expected to survive. When Villegas was found at a traffic stop the next day, he also allegedly tried to ram a police car. According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), he has been deported 11 times. ICE spokeswoman Lori Haley called him a “serial immigration violator.” He has a criminal record, too, in addition to his repeated immigration violations, he has at least one drug conviction in 2013 and a DUI in 2014. ICE has lodged a detainer request asking that he be held for pickup if he’s ever released on his pending state criminal charges. However, since California is a sanctuary state, the request will likely not be honored.

On July 13, Orlando Vilchez Lazo, an illegal alien from Peru, was arrested in San Francisco for allegedly committing four rapes, one in 2013 and three this year. He has been dubbed the “Rideshare Rapist” by police and multiple media outlets because in all four cases he allegedly posed as a driver for a ride-sharing service, picked up drunk women, drove them to secluded areas and then raped them, some at knifepoint. While ICE has also lodged a detainer for him with the San Francisco County Jail, the agency expects the detainer to be ignored if he’s ever released on bond or supervision. San Francisco has a particularly extreme sanctuary policy which requires aliens to be released unless they have been convicted of a very limited number of serious crimes. ICE spokesman Richard Rocha condemned the policy for “shield[ing]criminal aliens who prey on people in the community[.]”

The number of sanctuary jurisdictions has exploded over the past ten years, and especially since Donald Trump was elected in 2016: FAIR last counted 564 of them nationwide. When will politicians in these sanctuary cities, counties and states finally stop protecting criminal aliens and start protecting their own constituents? How many victims have to needlessly suffer from crimes that could and should have been prevented, at the hands of people who shouldn’t even be here? When is enough enough?