On New Year’s Eve, a 14-year-old girl with autism was lured from her home in Cathedral City and brutally raped by a 20-year-old illegal alien. This horrific attack, carried out under the cover of California’s sanctuary laws, exposes the deadly cost of an open-borders agenda.

Enrique Bautista Vasquez entered the United States unlawfully. Police found him carrying a stolen Social Security card and a counterfeit green card—proof he built his life here on fraud. Yet California’s sanctuary status let him roam free until he preyed on a vulnerable child.

According to the Cathedral City Police Department, the victim—her autism driving her to wander—reached the campus of Mayfield College. There, Vasquez coaxed her back to his apartment. Inside, he raped and sodomized her before letting her go. Terrified, she walked home and told her parents, who immediately called 911.

Vasquez was arrested and charged with child rape, sexual assault of a person unable to consent, and abuse of a particularly vulnerable victim. He remains locked up at Benoit Detention Center on $1 million bail.

California’s sanctuary policies create a shield for predators. Local law enforcement is barred from notifying federal immigration officials about violent offenders. The result: more victims, more heartbreak, more headlines like this one.

Republican leaders must demand accountability. We need to defund sanctuary jurisdictions that refuse to cooperate with federal immigration authorities. We must secure our borders and deport criminals—no excuses, no exceptions.

Families deserve protection, not politics. It’s time to end policies that elevate illegal aliens over American kids. When the safety of our children is on the line, we cannot afford to look the other way.