President Joe Biden’s campaign said it was ‘racist’ to suggest migrant crime is rising after the murder of Georgia nursing student Laken Riley and slammed Donald Trump for ‘poisoning the blood of the country’ with his rhetoric.
Illegal Venezuelan immigrant Jose Antonio Ibarra was arrested for the murder of the 22-year-old nursing student. Trump referred to him as a ‘monster.’
The Biden campaign said, despite high-profile cases like Riley’s, the suggestion of a ‘migrant crime wave’ doesn’t bare out.
‘This immigrant crime narrative is racist,’ said Democratic Rep. Robert Garcia of California on a press briefing call Wednesday organized by Biden’s re-election campaign. ‘It’s not true. Donald Trump is out here saying that we’re poisoning the blood of this country, and the facts actually don’t bear that out.’
‘Immigrants, by and large, are committing less crime. So whenever this narrative comes forward, you know, it’s just it’s just an untrue narrative,’ he added.
Laken Riley was killed while jogging in Georgia, an illegal migrant was arrested on suspicion of her murder
A recent Pew poll found that 57% of Americans say the large number of migrants seeking to enter the country leads to more crime.
Charis Kubrin, the co-author of Immigration and Crime: Taking Stock, told CNN that the statistics just don’t bare out when it comes to tying more immigration to higher crime rates.
‘The most common finding across all these different kinds of studies is that immigration to an area is either not associated with crime in that area, or is negatively associated with crime in that area,’ he said.
‘Meaning more immigration equals less crime. It’s rare to find studies that show crime following increases in immigration or with larger percentage of the population that are immigrants.’
The Biden campaign defended migrants ahead of Biden’s second trip to the border on Thursday.
Biden will travel to Brownsville, Texas, on the same day Donald Trump will be in Eagle Pass, Texas. The cities are about 300 miles apart and the two men are not expected to interact.
Both Joe Biden (left) and Donald Trump (right) will be on the Texas border on Thursday: Biden in Brownsville, Texas, and Trump in Eagle Pass, Texas
While there, Biden will ‘meet with U.S. Border Patrol agents, law enforcement, frontline personnel, and local leaders to discuss the urgent need to pass the Senate bipartisan border security agreement,’ a White House official said.
The president will be joined by Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, Rep. Vincente Gonzalez, local elected officials, as well as personnel from Customs and Border Protection (CBP), Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS).
Biden will be briefed on border security operations and then he will make public remarks on the need for House Republicans to pass a bipartisan border package already approved by the Senate. Conservatives argue the legislation is not strong enough to combat illegal immigration.
The bill included over $20 billion for border security that would add new Customs and Border Patrol agents, add more asylum officers to increase that process time, and add more immigration judges.
Democrats accuse the GOP of election year politics. Trump, who is Biden’s likely rival in the 2024 presidential election, has come out against the legislation.
The former president, while he is in Eagle Pass, will blast Biden on the record high number of illegal crossings and Riley’s murder, the latest high-profile case involving a migrant.
Riley, a nursing student, was found dead by police last Thursday after she failed to return from her morning jog. University of Georgia police found her near where she’d been jogging through the campus intramural fields with ‘visible injuries.’
‘Crooked Joe Biden’s Border INVASION is destroying our country and killing our citizens! The horrible murder of 22-year-old Laken Riley at the University of Georgia should have NEVER happened! The monster who took her life illegally entered our Country in 2022…and then was released AGAIN by Radical Democrats in New York after injuring a CHILD!!,’ Trump wrote on Truth Social on Monday.
‘When I am your President, we will immediately Seal the Border, Stop the Invasion, and on Day One, we will begin the largest deportation operation of illegal CRIMINALS in American History! May God Bless Laken Riley and her family!!! Our prayers are with you!’
Jose Ibarra, 26, was arrested on charges that included murder and kidnapping in the death of 22-year-old nursing student Laken Hope Riley in Athens, Georgia
Riley was killed by ‘blunt force trauma,’ police confirmed.
The White House has expressed sympathy for her family but has indicated Biden has not contacted them.
‘I do want to extend our deepest condolences to the family and loved ones of Laken Riley,’ White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said on Wednesday.
‘Given this is an active case, I’m going to be really careful about speaking to that case more specifically,’ she added. ‘I don’t have anything regarding to the President’s speaking to the family, but it is heartbreaking. I can’t even imagine what the family is going through.’
Ibarra has been charged with malice murder, felony murder, aggravated battery, aggravated assault, false imprisonment, kidnapping, hindering a 911 call, concealing the death of another and failure to appear for a finger printable charge.
The 26-year-old crossed into El Paso, Texas in September 2022 but had been released from a detention center due to a lack of space.
His illegal status prompted Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp to publicly fault the Biden administration for its immigration policies.
Ibarra was arrested in 2022 after entering the US illegally and was ‘paroled and released for further processing,’ according to a statement from ICE.
He was also arrested last September by New York City police and charged with ‘acting in a manner to injure a child less than 17 and a motor vehicle license violation,’ but police released him ‘before a detainer could be issued,’ ICE said.
Cops said that he did not know the victim and the crime was a ‘random, solo act.’
UGA Police Chief Jeffrey Clark told reporters at a press conference Thursday that officers have searched Ibarra’s apartment in Athens and evidence shows that he acted alone.
‘He did not know her at all. I think this is a crime of opportunity where he saw an individual and bad things happened,’ Clark said.
‘The evidence is robust. It is supported by key input by the community, physical evidence and expert police work. Importantly, we were assisted by video footage from our campus security cameras network.’
Trump said in a Truth Social post on Monday that if president again he would ‘begin the largest deportation operation of illegal criminals in American history’
Since Biden took office in 2021, over 7.2 million migrants have entered the U.S. through the southern border.
That’s more people than the population of 36 states. Arizona, for example, had 7.1 million residents according to the 2020 census.
Trump has promised the ‘ largest deportation’ in U.S. history of illegal immigrants if he becomes president again in 2024.