Photo: Alamy
Just hours ahead of Biden’s State of the Union (SOTU) address, the Republican-led House of Representatives passed the “Laken Riley Act,” which would require Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to detain migrants charged with theft and burglary.
The bill was named after 22-year-old Laken Riley, a nursing student at Augusta University College of Nursing. She was brutally murdered by a 26-year-old illegal alien man from Venezuela on February 22 while on a jog at the University of Georgia campus.
The bill passed with a vote of 251-170, with just 37 Democrats joining the Republicans in favor.
Jose Ibarra was previously arrested in 2022 after entering the United States illegally but was released into the country pending his court date. According to NewsNation, he was arrested again in 2023 by the NYPD for a motor vehicle license violation with a minor child in the vehicle. ICE officials said he was “released by the NYPD before a detainer could be issued.”
Riley’s murder was just one of many examples of migrant crime that has been on the rise since Biden took office. Millions of illegal aliens have poured into the United States without proper vetting.
Most end up in large so-called sanctuary cities, which was the case with Riley’s murderer. According to the New York Post, Clark County, Georgia, “operates as a unified government with Athens” and has been labeled as a “sanctuary jurisdiction by the Center for Immigration Studies” due to the county sheriff’s refusal to cooperate with ICE unless a “court order or warrant” is obtained.
Breitbart News reported that Republicans plan to honor Angel Families during Biden’s SOTU to shine a light on “those who have been victimized or lost loved ones to crimes committed by illegal aliens.”
Georgia Republican Representative Mike Collins is leaving an empty seat in the chamber to honor those “he could have invited” if they had not died at the hands of “foreign criminals who had no business being in this country.”
Meanwhile, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre refused to give a straight answer on Tuesday when Fox News’ Peter Doocy asked if Biden would “publicly address Laken Riley’s murder” during his speech.
