CV NEWS FEED // A spokesperson for the Biden White House on Monday offered sympathies to the friends and family of University of Georgia (UGA) nursing student Laken Riley, who was murdered Thursday morning.
Critics slammed the Biden administration for policies that enabled Riley’s suspected killer, Venezuelan national Jose Antonio Ibarra, to illegally enter the country.
The White House spokesperson told FOX News that the administration would “like to extend our deepest condolences to the family and loved ones of Laken Hope Riley.”
“People should be held accountable to the fullest extent of the law if they are found to be guilty,” the White House spokesperson added. “Given this is an active case, we would have to refer you to state law enforcement and [U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)].”
Riley, 22, was last seen out for a jog on campus Thursday morning. As Newsweek reported, her body
was discovered on Thursday in a wooded area in Athens, near the [UGA] campus. The following evening, police announced that Ibarra, 26, had been charged with malice murder, felony murder, aggravated battery, aggravated assault, false imprisonment, kidnapping, hindering a 911 call, and concealing the death of another in connection with Riley’s.
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The White House’s comments came after many of President Joe Biden’s critics blasted the administration’s silence on the murder over the preceding days.
Rep. Mike Collins, R-GA, whose district includes UGA’s campus, stated that “the blood of Laken Riley is on the hands of Joe Biden [and Homeland Security Secretary] Alejandro Mayorkas.”
In a Saturday letter, Georgia Republican Gov. Brian Kemp called the president’s immigration policies into question.
“As I have stated many times in the past, your actions and those of your administration have resulted in every state in the country experiencing the disastrous impacts of an unsecured U.S. southern border,” Kemp wrote. “The American people deserve to know who is illegally entering our country due to your administration’s failures, and what risks and challenges every state must now face.”
Former President Donald Trump also highlighted the unprecedented crisis at the southern border as a likely catalyst for Riley’s murder.
“Crooked Joe Biden’s Border INVASION is destroying our country and killing our citizens!” Trump wrote on TRUTH Social Monday. The nursing student’s tragic death “should have NEVER happened!” he continued. “[T]he monster who took [Riley’s] life illegally entered our Country in 2022… and then was released AGAIN by Radical Democrats in New York after injuring a CHILD!!”
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The New York Post reported that Ibarra “twice slipped through the hands of law enforcement last year — and could have been deported after a bust” in New York City.
Per the Post, the suspect
was arrested in Queens on Aug. 31 and charged with endangering a child — but was cut loose before immigration officials could file a request to ask local cops to hold him in custody, authorities said Monday.
Ibarra was also wanted on an arrest warrant in Georgia for blowing off a shoplifting court appearance in December, one federal lawmaker said.
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Furthermore, a Monday report by Breitbart described how Ibarra’s illegal entry into the United States was aided by the Biden administration’s “parole” policies.
According to Breitbart, the Venezuelan “first arrived at the United States-Mexico border in September 2022 near El Paso, Texas.”
“Rather than being held in detention or immediately removed, he was released into the United States interior via Biden’s parole pipeline,” Breitbart noted.
As CatholicVote noted last month, the Biden administration’s parole policies have “reportedly allowed over a million migrants to flood into the country.”
