On October 7, Alpha Bah sat in Queens Central Booking after being arrested for aggravated assault on a police officer with a deadly weapon, resisting arrest, and obstructing governmental administration. ICE lodged a detainer request. The NYPD had him in custody, knew federal authorities wanted him, and released him anyway.
Now there's a manhunt.
Bah entered the United States illegally in November 2023, according to Fox News. By January 2025, he'd been arrested for criminal trespassing. Released. By June 2026, he was arrested again — this time for intent to obtain transportation without paying. Released again. Then came October 7, when he allegedly attacked a cop with a deadly weapon. ICE filed a detainer. The city ignored it. For the second time.
Two detainer requests. Two refusals. One violent illegal immigrant walking the streets of New York City tonight while police scramble to find him.
DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin didn't dress it up. "This illegal alien from Guinea was arrested for assaulting a police officer with a deadly weapon. Despite these violent charges, New York City sanctuary politicians refused to honor ICE's detainer and RELEASED him back onto the streets, and he remains at large."
Mullin connected the dots from open border to open cell door: "This is the vision of sanctuary politicians in a nutshell: the open-border policies of the Biden Administration let this criminal into our country, and then sanctuary politicians in New York released him after arresting him without notifying ICE."
The sanctuary infrastructure here isn't an accident or an oversight. Mayor Zohran Mamdani — the socialist who now runs New York City — signed an executive order to "reaffirm the city's commitment to being a sanctuary for all New Yorkers." The policy restricts federal immigration enforcement on city property and mandates compliance audits to make sure no city agency accidentally cooperates with the feds. They built an enforcement mechanism. It just enforces non-enforcement.
Governor Kathy Hochul poured the foundation in May 2026 when she signed legislation blocking New York law enforcement from entering agreements with ICE. So even if a local cop wanted to hold someone for federal pickup, the state made sure they couldn't.
Hochul's office released a statement: "Governor Hochul has zero tolerance for violence and believes that any individual found guilty of committing a violent crime must be prosecuted and held accountable to the fullest extent of the law."
Zero tolerance for violence. She signed a law preventing the one agency that could have kept Bah off the streets from doing its job. The NYPD arrested him three times. ICE asked to take custody twice. Hochul's own legislation made sure the answer was no.
Mullin called it what it is: "DHS is calling on Governor Kathy Hochul and Mayor Zohran Mamdani to knock it off with these evil sanctuary policies before another American gets hurt, or worse."
DHS noted that 7 of the 10 safest cities in the United States cooperate with ICE. New York City is not on that list. New York City built a system where a man can enter the country illegally, get arrested three separate times — including once for attacking a police officer with a deadly weapon — and walk free every time because the city treats an ICE detainer like junk mail.
This manhunt hits just four days before the midterms. Sanctuary policy isn't an abstraction anymore. It's an active manhunt for a man who should never have been released, in a city that made sure he was.
He remains at large.