Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas called out over the weekend after he rejected the notion that the federal government bore responsibility for the murder of a student in Georgia student last month who was allegedly killed by an illegal alien.
Police arrested 26-year-old Jose Antonio Ibarra, a Venezuelan national, late last month for allegedly murdering 22-year-old Augusta University nursing student Laken Riley.
CBS News “Face The Nation” host Margaret Brennan asked Mayorkas on Sunday about Riley’s death and whether Ibarra should have been deported earlier since he was arrested multiple times in different jurisdictions across the country.
“The suspect had been detained by Border Patrol upon crossing, released with temporary permission to stay in the country,” Brennan said. “He then went on allegedly to commit crimes twice, once in New York for driving a scooter without a license, and once in connection with a shoplifting case in Georgia.”
“Did those states and their law enforcement communicate to the federal government that this had happened?” she asked. “Should this man have been deported?”
Mayorkas responded, “As a prosecutor, having prosecuted violent crime and other crimes for 12 years, one individual is responsible for the murder, and that is the murderer. And we work very closely with state and local law enforcement to ensure that individuals who pose a threat to public safety are indeed our highest priority for detention and removal.”
WATCH:
WATCH: Biden DHS Sec. Alejandro Mayorkas has to read from notes in response to the murder of 22-year-old Laken Riley by an illegal alien.
Mayorkas refuses to admit the murderer should never have been in America in the first place. pic.twitter.com/JVNy9jVJRn
— Steve Guest (@SteveGuest) March 3, 2024
Mayorkas went on to say that the federal government was not notified by other jurisdictions that Ibarra might pose a threat to public safety and claimed the Biden administration works to ensure dangerous illegal aliens are detained and deported.
Fox News correspondent Bill Melugin, one of the leading reporters covering the border crisis, responded to Mayorkas’ remarks on X.
“Mayorkas points finger at sanctuary city here but it was the Feds who first released Ibarra into the U.S., like hundreds of thousands of other adult men, and they continue to mass import Venezuelans into the U.S. via controversial use of parole authority, knowing 99% will never leave or be deported because Venezuela won’t take its citizens back,” Melugin wrote.
“So far DHS has paroled over 86,000 Venezuelans into the U.S. using the parole program (completely separate from the hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans crossing illegally) despite the fact that U.S. law is specific in that parole is only to be granted on a ‘case by case’ basis for urgent humanitarian reasons (medical procedure, funeral, etc), or significant public benefit (testify in a trial as a witness etc),” he continued. “According to ICE data, only 834 Venezuelans were deported in fiscal year 2023, despite 335,000 Venezuelans being encountered in the same year. They aren’t going anywhere anytime soon.”
Mayorkas points finger at sanctuary city here but it was the Feds who first released Ibarra into the U.S., like hundreds of thousands of other adult men, and they continue to mass import Venezuelans into the U.S. via controversial use of parole authority, knowing 99% will never… https://t.co/JlgxINAznZ
— Bill Melugin (@BillMelugin_) March 3, 2024