GOP Lawmakers Demand Mayorkas Hand Over DHS Info on Illegal Immigrant Charged with Murdering Laken Riley

Republican Representatives Jim Jordan of Ohio, and Tom McClintock of California demanded on Tuesday that Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas turn over any information he has about the illegal immigrant who is suspected of killing a Georgia nursing students last week.

In a two page letter, Jordan and McClintock requested that Mayorkas comply to the House Judiciary Committee request for details and records regarding the immigration status of Jose Antonio Ibarra (26). The Venezuelan national crossed illegally into El Paso in Texas on September 20, 2022. Customs and Border Protection released him shortly after.

The GOP chairmen wrote that “criminal aliens exploit weaknesses in our nation’s migration system to the detriment those in the United States.” The Biden Administration’s immigration and border policies increase the chances that criminal aliens can enter the U.S.

The letter asks for information about Ibarra. This includes his immigration case history and any encounters with CBP. It also inquires if Immigration and Customs Enforcement holds an immigration detainer against him.

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In a statement released on Sunday, ICE stated that its Atlanta office had lodged a Detainer against Ibarra. Ibarra is currently in prison in Georgia.

Mayorkas is required to provide all requested information before 5 pm on Wednesday, March 12.

Mark Green (R. Tenn.), a member of the House Homeland Security Committee, requested similar information about Ibarra via a separate email sent to DHS. The chief executive officer of the agency must reply to this question by 5 pm on Wednesday, March 11.

Mayorkas faces the prospect that he will soon face a Senate trial for impeachment after the House impeached h him two weeks back. Congress is rushing to avoid two possible shutdowns of the government by this week’s end and next.

Ibarra was arrested on Friday and charged with the kidnapping of Laken Riley. The 22-year-old student of Augusta University College of Nursing, Athens, Ga., had been found dead in the University of Georgia where she was a former undergraduate.

On Tuesday, new court documents revealed that Ibarra was accused of “seriously deforming her body” as well as “disfiguring the skull”.

When he abducted Riley during a run on the Georgia campus, he allegedly used an object to cause “great bodily injury” and prevent her from calling the authorities. The affidavits don’t reveal the object Ibarra was using to commit the murder or how Riley was killed. The initial cause of her death was blunt force trauma.

Ibarra is accused of bringing her body, after the murder mid-day on Thursday, to a remote area where she was found later.

Ibarra had been arrested in New York City on charges of actions causing harm to a child younger than 17 years old and driving without a license. He was released at the time before ICE issued a detainer. The New York Police Department, however, said that it had no record of Ibarra being arrested.