Comments from Vice President Kamala Harris about border security resurfaced after the death of Georgia college student Laken Riley, prompting anger from conservatives online.
Riley, a 22-year-old student at the Augusta University College of Nursing, was found dead on Thursday near the campus of the University of Georgia (UGA) in Athens. She was first reported missing by friends earlier in the day after they said she did not come home after a morning run, prompting police to begin a search. Her body was found in a wooded area behind Lake Herrick at about 12:38 p.m. local time.
On Friday evening, UGA Police Chief Jeffrey Clark announced at a press conference that 26-year-old Jose Antonio Ibarra, a resident of Athens, Georgia, had been arrested and 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 death. Clark said Friday that the cause of death was blunt force trauma.
Ibarra, a Venezuelan migrant, 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.
Ethan Miller/Getty Images
He added that Ibarra is not a United States citizen and had no prior history of violence, describing the situation as an “isolated incident” and a “crime of opportunity, [with] no motive.” Subsequent reports found that Ibarra and his wife crossed the border into the U.S. on September 8, 2022. Three or four other people were taken into custody during the investigation into Riley’s death, but only Ibarra has been charged.
As news has emerged about the case and Ibarra’s background, several conservatives on social media brought up comments from Harris on September 11, 2022, only three days after the suspect’s reported crossing, in which she claimed that the southern border was secure.
“I think that there is no question that we have to do what the president and I asked Congress to do, the first request we made: pass a bill to create a pathway to citizenship,” Harris said in an interview with Meet the Press‘ Chuck Todd. “The border is secure, but we also have a broken immigration system, in particular, over the last four years before we came in, and it needs to be fixed.”
“Three days after Georgia student Laken Riley’s killer illegally crossed the border, Kamala Harris went on national TV and said ‘the border is secure,'” X user Alex Bruesewitz wrote in a post. “Disgraceful!!!!”
“Laken Riley’s illegal immigrant killer crossed the southern border on September 8, 2022,” the pro-Trump political action committee Make America Great Again Inc., wrote on its X account. “Three days later, Kamala Harris told NBC: ‘We have a secure border.'”
Newsweek reached out to the White House via email on Monday morning for comment.
Incidents like the one in Athens involving migrants who entered the U.S. illegally have long been highlighted by conservative lawmakers as a reason to implement stricter policies on crossings at the southern border with Mexico. Statistics, however, show that native-born U.S. citizens are arrested and imprisoned for a variety of crimes at notably higher rates than undocumented immigrants.
The Department of Justice’s Office of Justice Programs found in 2020 that “relative to undocumented immigrants, U.S.-born citizens are over 2 times more likely to be arrested for violent crimes, 2.5 times more likely to be arrested for drug crimes, and over 4 times more likely to be arrested for property crimes.”
Uncommon Knowledge
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.