A Mother and Daughter Never Made It Home and DHS Says One County Made Sure of It

A mother and daughter from Northern Virginia were driving home on I-270 when headlights appeared going the wrong way.

Neither of them survived the night.

DHS says this death was preventable and one Maryland county's own laws are the reason it wasn't.

An Illegal Immigrant DHS Wanted Off the Roads Was Driving Drunk the Wrong Way

Jose Antonio Caballero-Nolasco is an illegal immigrant from El Salvador.

On August 29, he got behind the wheel drunk.

He drove the wrong way on Interstate 270 in Montgomery County, Maryland.

Witnesses said he never even tried to brake.

He hit a car carrying four people head-on.

Musammat Shamima Begum, 46, was killed instantly.

So was her 23-year-old daughter, Areebah Jahin.

A 62-year-old man and an 8-year-old girl in the same car survived and were rushed to the hospital.

Responding officers said Caballero-Nolasco reeked of alcohol.

His eyes were bloodshot.

His speech was slurred.

Montgomery County's top prosecutor, State's Attorney John McCarthy, said investigators found empty beer bottles in the vehicle.

Caballero-Nolasco admitted he'd been drinking.

He's now charged with two counts of grossly negligent manslaughter, two counts of homicide by motor vehicle while impaired, and life-threatening injury by motor vehicle.

ICE Wants Him Held. Montgomery County's Own Laws Make That Complicated.

DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin's department has already lodged a detainer.

That's a formal request asking Montgomery County to hold Caballero-Nolasco for ICE instead of releasing him back onto the street.

"This tragedy was completely avoidable," said Mullin.

"Musammat Shamima Begum and Areebah Jahin should still be alive."

Here's what Mullin didn't have to spell out for anyone who's followed Maryland politics the last two years: Montgomery County has spent that time building a legal wall between its jails and federal immigration agents.

The County Council pushed through the County Values Act this spring, barring ICE agents from even entering county buildings without a judicial warrant.

Annapolis Democrats followed with the Community Trust Act, blocking local jails from holding anyone for ICE unless a judge signs off.

Republicans warned at the time these laws would cripple state-federal crime-fighting and invite exactly the kind of catastrophe that just played out on I-270.

Democrats passed them anyway.

This Isn't a One-Off. It's the Business Model.

Sanctuary politicians love to say they still cooperate on "violent crimes" and "serious felonies."

Montgomery County Executive Marc Elrich said almost that exact sentence.

But the pattern nationwide tells a different story every single time.

A twice-deported illegal alien in Orange County killed two teenagers doing 100 mph drunk on the 405 – state prison let him out early, and it took federal prosecutors to finally lock him up for good.

A Guatemalan national deported once already killed a 61-year-old North Carolina man in a hit-and-run after a local DA let him walk on multiple prior DUIs.

A Mexican national deported three times ran a stop sign in North Carolina and killed a 6-year-old girl named Calli Toler.

Same script. Different state. Different victims. Same politicians insisting their policies only protect the "good ones."

Mullin Is Done Asking Nicely

This is exactly why Mullin told Laura Ingraham on Ingraham Angle two days ago that he was sitting in the Oval Office with President Trump discussing how to legally cut off federal funding to sanctuary jurisdictions.

Mullin has already floated pulling Customs and Border Protection officers out of sanctuary city airports entirely.

His logic is simple: if Montgomery County won't let ICE finish the job inside the county, why should Montgomery County keep collecting federal money while Washington cleans up the mess afterward.

Think about that for a second. The county council spent this spring writing a law to keep federal agents out of their buildings.

Nobody in Annapolis spent five minutes writing a law to keep him off I-270 in the first place.

Two women are dead because a county government decided a wrong-way drunk driver's paperwork mattered more than getting him off American roads before he killed somebody.

That's not a policy dispute. That's a body count.

Sources:

• Louis Casiano, "ICE lodges detainer for illegal immigrant charged in wrong-way Maryland crash that killed mom, daughter," Fox News, September 4, 2026.
• Department of Homeland Security, "ICE Lodges Detainer for Illegal Alien Arrested After Causing Car Crash that Killed a 6-Year-Old in North Carolina," DHS.gov, July 8, 2026.
• Fox News, "Previously deported illegal immigrant allegedly kills man in hit-and-run after returning to US: DHS," FoxNews.com.
• U.S. Department of Justice, "Twice-Deported Illegal Immigrant Who Caused Fatal O.C. Car Crash Sentenced to Nearly 4 Years in Federal Prison," Justice.gov, January 23, 2026.
• WTOP News, "Montgomery County Council passes bill to limit ICE access in county buildings," WTOP.com, March 26, 2026.
• The Baltimore Banner, "Maryland House votes to further limit cooperation with ICE," TheBanner.com, April 11, 2026.
• WFMD, "DHS boss reveals Oval Office plan to 'withhold funding' from sanctuary cities after aggressive New York bust," WFMD.com, September 2, 2026.