New York Ignored ICE and Freed Him. Police Say He Then Stabbed a 15-Year-Old Girl Five Times

A 15-year-old girl in Baltimore climbed into what she thought was a cab on the night of Oct. 22. About 45 minutes later, police say, she ran out of a basement apartment with no clothes and no shoes, stabbed at least five times, one lung collapsed.

The man charged is Abubakarr Barrie, 23, an illegal alien from Sierra Leone. And according to the Department of Homeland Security, he should never have been on that street. The Biden administration released him at the border in 2023. Then, in July, New York let him go even though ICE had asked to hold him.

"This tragedy would never have happened were it not for the multiple failures of sanctuary policies," Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said in a DHS statement. "First, Biden's open borders let this monster into our country, then sanctuary politicians in New York refused to hand him over to ICE and released him after a previous arrest three months before this horrific crime."

What police say happened

The details come from charging documents first obtained by Baltimore stations WJZ and FOX45. The girl was trying to get to a carryout. Barrie, police say, was driving an unlicensed "hack" cab, the informal rides common in Baltimore. When she told him he was going the wrong way, he "immediately became violent," put her in a headlock while she was still buckled in, and drove her to the basement room he rented on Garrison Boulevard.

Inside, police wrote, he "advised her to put her phone down and not to scream," pulled off her clothes and "began stabbing her all over her body." She clawed at him, hit him with a fire extinguisher and ran. A stranger on Belle Avenue let her use a phone to call 911 and her mother. She is expected to survive.

Police found him fast. He had given her his number so she could pay through Cash App, and he still had her phone, which police could track. He was arrested at the house on Oct. 24. A judge ordered him held without bond on Oct. 26 on nine charges, including attempted first-degree murder and kidnapping, which can carry life in prison. His public defender says he maintains his innocence and has no prior convictions. A homeowner's camera, aired by FOX45, shows parts of the arrival and the girl's escape, not what happened inside.

The holds that didn't hold

Here is the part the local coverage mostly skips: how a man who crossed illegally in 2023 was still driving around Baltimore in 2026.

DHS says Barrie crossed through Arizona in December 2023 and was caught by the Border Patrol, then released into the country. In July 2026 the NYPD arrested him for third-degree possession of a forged instrument, a misdemeanor under New York law. ICE lodged a detainer, its formal request that a jail hold someone for pickup. DHS says New York refused to honor it.

That refusal is not an accident. It is the law in New York City. Since 2014 the city's code has barred its jails from holding someone for ICE unless the request comes with a warrant signed by a federal judge and the person has a recent conviction for a "violent or serious crime" or is a possible terror-watch-list match. A forgery misdemeanor doesn't come close. Think of it as a bouncer told to wave everyone through unless they show up with a judge's note and a rap sheet. ICE can't get either from a routine arrest, so the door stays open.

FOX45 also found a prostitution arrest in Baltimore County in late summer, a case put on hold. He had moved back to the Garrison Boulevard room only a month or two before the attack, the homeowner told the station.

Mamdani's answer: sue ICE

On the same day ICE posted the case, New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, whose city declined ICE's July hold on Barrie according to DHS, took aim at the agency. Not over the release. Over parking.

In a letter to Mullin and two ICE officials, Mamdani said agents had "reportedly parked their vehicles and conducted meetings" in unstaffed city lots at Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx and Flushing Meadows Corona Park in Queens. He called it "unlawful commandeering of City property" and warned: "If your agents continue any unauthorized use of these lots, New York City will take legal action."

"ICE has no right to use our property as a base for tearing families apart," Mamdani said in his office's release. "If they keep coming back, we will see them in court." His office also rolled out a new Parks Department policy telling workers to refuse federal agents entry to restricted areas without a judge's warrant.

So the city that wants a judge's signature before it will hold an accused forger for ICE is now threatening a lawsuit over where ICE agents park. By DHS's account, a 15-year-old girl in Maryland paid for the first one.

What happens next

Barrie stays jailed without bond. FOX45 reports a preliminary hearing on Nov. 25. ICE has lodged a new detainer with Maryland, and DHS is asking local authorities to "learn from sanctuary New York's mistakes" and honor it, so that if he is ever released, he goes to ICE and not back onto the street. We found no public answer yet from Baltimore or Maryland officials on whether they will.