Undocumented mother at center of Montco detention policy freed as criminal charges are dismissed

Criminal charges have been dismissed against an undocumented woman at the center of a case that drew outcry over Montgomery County’s cooperation with ICE at the local prison.

County officials subsequently dropped their policy of jailing immigrants wanted by ICE for up to four hours after their bail had been paid.

It was the criminal charges, involving a June 3 car-ramming incident in East Norriton, that saw Andrea Lozano-Alanis, 31, of Norristown, confined at the Montgomery County Correctional Facility.

She was kept there after her $77 bail was posted, under the then-county policy. That enabled federal authorities to travel to the jail, arrest her, and take her into ICE custody.

The reasons for the dismissal of the charges were not immediately clear.

Advocates said Tuesday that Lozano-Alanis was freed from an ICE detention center in central Pennsylvania at about 6:30 p.m., after they paid her $5,000 immigration bond with money raised via GoFundMe.

She had been held at the 1,876-bed Moshannon Valley Processing Center in Clearfield County.

Denisse Agurto, executive director of Unides Para Servir Norristown, said she spoke with Lozano-Alanis after her release, and described her as happy and excited to be out to be able to see her son soon.

“She does not have the words to thank everyone,” Agurto said. “She is very thankful for the support she got.”

Lozano-Alanis plans to stay overnight in central Pennsylvania at the home of a supporter, then travel to the Philadelphia area by bus on Wednesday, Arguto said Tuesday evening.

Federal immigration proceedings against her will continue. Migrants freed on bond generally are in a better position to try to win their cases, as they have greater access to attorneys and supporters from the outside.

“Today we’re celebrating,” said Jasmine Rivera, executive director of the Pennsylvania Immigration Coalition, which has worked on Lozano-Alanis’ behalf. “A mother will be reunited with her child; a mother will be free from a detention center she should have never been sent to.”

Lozano-Alanis was jailed in Montgomery County after an incident in which she allegedly rammed her car into that of a romantic partner outside a Truist bank.

The charges against her included child endangerment because her 6-year-old son was inside her car at the time. She was also accused of recklessly endangering another person, careless and reckless driving, and driving without a license.

Rivera said that after celebrating Lozano-Alanis’ release from detention, activists will resume pressing Montgomery County leaders to pass a “Welcoming County” act to support immigrants.

The county, she said, “needs to use the full extent of its power to stop collaborating with a rogue agency that violates peoples’ rights, ignores the Constitution, and kidnaps our people.”

A county spokesperson did not immediately offer comment when asked. ICE officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Democrat-led county board of commissioners has been resistant to enacting such a policy, noting limits to its power and concerns that a formal welcoming ordinance could give a false sense of safety to undocumented immigrants. The board has repeatedly asserted support for immigrants, including establishing a new office of immigrant affairs.

Last week, Montgomery County officially barred its employees from providing information to ICE, telling them to withhold data like immigration status and country of origin unless directed to do so by their superiors.

“County employees are not deputized federal immigration agents,” according to the policy, which was announced at a packed Montgomery County Board of Commissioners meeting in Norristown.

County workers who might be approached by ICE agents now are directed to ask for supporting documents, such as a court order, and then notify their supervisor, who is to contact the county solicitor. The county will require a judicial warrant or judicial subpoena before providing information on any person to federal enforcement agents, according to the policy.

The GoFundMe for Lozano-Alanis has so far raised $5,200, more than enough to pay her immigration bond, which advocates said had been set at $5,000.

Three days after The Inquirer reported on how she had been held by the county after paying her bail, Montgomery County jail officials dropped that policy. The procedure had enabled federal agents to arrest people who might otherwise have been freed, as the county automatically held those named in ICE detainers for an additional four hours.

That practice outraged activists, who said the county had no right to hold people who have met their legal bail conditions. They pointed out that jurisdictions in other places have been successfully sued for doing that.

County officials said they had been considering the policy change for weeks.

An ICE detainer is an agency-issued request, usually to a jail or police department, to hold someone past the time they would normally be released. Legal advocates note that ICE requests are exactly that, requests.

The city of Philadelphia, for instance, refuses to honor ICE detainers unless they are accompanied by a signed judicial warrant.

Now the Montgomery County jail will do the same, recognizing only those warrants that have been approved and signed by a judge.

Staff writer Katie Bernard contributed to this article.