Amid reports that Laken Riley’s suspected murderer was an illegal Venezuelan immigrant with a criminal record, observers are pointing to a correlation between Venezuela’s declining crime rate and the intensifying crisis at the U.S. southern border.
“The murder rate in Venezuela was a massive crisis for the country,” political commentator Mike Cernovich recently pointed out on X. “The murder rate has sharply declined since [President] Joe Biden opened the borders. Now the [United States] gets to experience these murders and gang attacks.”
Cernovich cited a pair of articles to show the drastic decline in murders in the South American nation.
One article from 2019 referred to Venezuela’s murder rate as “soaring,” adding that it has “plunged the nation into a public health crisis.”
However, Cernovich also cited a Bloomberg piece from December 2023 acknowledging that the country’s murder rate is the “lowest since 2001.” The article also acknowledges that this comes as a record number of migrants are leaving the country.
“Venezuela’s rate of violent deaths dropped to its lowest level in more than two decades following years of massive migration as both criminals and victims fled the nation’s economic crisis,” author Andreina Itriago Acosta wrote in the article.
Writer Nate Hochman replied to Cernovich: “And now, Venezuela is refusing to accept the Venezuelan nationals that the U.S. is trying to send home.”
Hochmann referenced a Wall Street Journal (WSJ) article from last week. “Uncle Sam is once again footing the bill for other country’s problems,” he emphasized.
WSJ reported on February 22: “Venezuela has followed through on a threat to stop accepting flights of migrants deported from the U.S. and Mexico … adding pressure on President Biden as a surge in illegal migration becomes a key issue in this year’s presidential election.”
Venezuelan national Jose Antonio Ibarra murdered University of Georgia (UGA) nursing student Laken Riley last Thursday on UGA’s campus. Riley was only 22 at the time of her death.
Days after reports of the murder first surfaced, Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) confirmed that the killer had entered the country illegally by crossing the Texas-Mexico border.
A Brietbart report Monday further established that “he was released into the United States interior via Biden’s parole pipeline.” CatholicVote reported last month that the Biden administration’s parole policies had enabled at least one million migrants to enter the country.
Prior to killing Riley, Ibarra had compiled a well-established criminal record.
The New York Post indicated on Monday that the murderer “twice slipped through the hands of law enforcement last year” and narrowly avoided deportation while in New York City.
The Post noted Ibarra “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.”
“Ibarra was also wanted on an arrest warrant in Georgia for blowing off a shoplifting court appearance in December,” the Post’s Monday report added.
>> BIDEN RESPONDS TO MURDER OF UGA STUDENT BY ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT <<
New affidavits for Ibarra’s arrest released Tuesday reveal grisly details of Riley’s murder.
FOX News reported that, according to the affidavits, “Ibarra ‘did commit the offense of aggravated battery when he maliciously causes bodily harm to another by seriously disfiguring [Riley’s] body or a member thereof by disfiguring her skull.”
The affidavit does not identify the weapon which the suspected murderer used to beat Riley.
“For the felony offense of concealing the death of another, the arrest affidavit accuses Ibarra of ‘dragging the victim to a secluded area,’” FOX added.
FOX further noted that police have “not yet disclosed exactly how Riley was killed, only that her death was caused by blunt force trauma.”
Per The New York Post’s Tuesday report, the murder suspect “faces eight charges, including felony murder, false imprisonment and kidnapping and concealing the death of another.”
“Authorities said there is no evidence [Ibarra] knew Riley,” the Post further noted.
