Washtenaw County's Eli Savit Helps Dangerous Criminals Evade ICE

The Trump administration filed a federal lawsuit last week against Washtenaw County Prosecutor Eli Savit, Sheriff Alyshia Dyer, and the Washtenaw County Board of Commissioners based on their ongoing refusal to cooperate with federal agents and honor immigration detainers.

Boy, do they deserve it.

The lawsuit centers on the question: Can localities obstruct federal law enforcement action and undermine federal immigration laws? The Trump administration says Washtenaw County interferes with the “government’s authority to protect Americans from criminal illegal aliens.”

It’s clear Ann Arbor-area law enforcement and leaders are content to release fugitives of justice back onto their streets while criticizing literally any effort to apprehend them. They also refuse to hand them over while they're still in custody.

The mainstream media, meanwhile, cheers them on and simply parrots activist talking points.

A recent MLive article, for example, labelled a federal law enforcement procedure “high-risk” and quoted a dishonest post from Ann Arbor Mayor Christopher Taylor.

Notably, Taylor lied about agents having their weapons drawn before taking the opportunity to call for the abolition of ICE. Even an eyewitness told MLive that she didn’t see any weapons drawn. But an honest headline doesn’t fit the narrative.

Washtenaw County Prosecutor Eli Savit’s immigration policy from 2021 eliminates interactions with ICE without a federal judicial warrant, and directs prosecutors to offer plea deals and dismissals in order to protect non-citizens.

Despite the narrative blasted out that ICE kidnaps innocent people, the illegal immigrants getting picked up are dangerous criminals and perverts that have no business walking free in any community.

Mario Araujo Rodriguez pled guilty to three counts of second degree criminal sexual conduct involving a child under 13. He received a one-year jail sentence but didn’t have to leave Washtenaw County, according to the lawsuit.

Upon his release, Washtenaw County Jail staff won’t comply with the detainer request notifying ICE of his release, the lawsuit states.

Another illegal alien, Nixo Ivan Flores-Sosa, was arrested on Sept. 3, 2024 and was charged with domestic violence and “assault with intent to do great bodily harm less than murder” by the Washtenaw County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office, according to the lawsuit.

But then both charges were dismissed, and ICE agents had to apprehend Flores-Sosa on the street in Ypsilanti, where he put the public at risk by trying to flee in his vehicle, the lawsuit says.

Then there’s Daniel Reyes Gamoa, an illegal immigrant who had already been removed from the country in 2016, the lawsuit says.

“He then reentered the United States and was arrested on August 23, 2025, by Defendant Washtenaw County Sheriff’s Office for domestic violence and child abuse in the fourth degree. Both charges were dismissed, and Mr. Reyes Gamoa was released from Defendant Washtenaw County’s custody,” the lawsuit says.

And then in November, Reyes Gamoa slammed his car into a U.S. Marshals Service vehicle and then fled on foot after his vehicle was stopped.

Instead of working with federal law enforcement to peacefully hand over dangerous criminals who are in the country illegally, it seems like Eli Savit and Christopher Taylor would rather needlessly put the public at risk in fealty to the woke hivemind.

Unfortunately, Savit is hoping to become Michigan’s next attorney general. If he gets the nomination over Oakland County Prosecutor Karen McDonald in the state’s Democratic convention next month, it’s likely that he’d export his disastrous immigration policy statewide.

Do we really want to live in a state where prosecutors put the public at risk while letting illegal immigrant child abusers roam free?

It’s not a hypothetical question. It’s the alternate reality Washtenaw County has invented contrary to federal law and common sense.