FIRST ON FOX: Republicans on the House Homeland Security Committee are demanding documents and information from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) related to a Venezuelan national who was paroled into the U.S. and was last week charged with the murder of a Georgia college student.
Chair Mark Green, in a letter obtained by Fox News Digital, wrote to DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas seeking information on Jose Antonio Ibarra — who is charged with the murder of 22-year-old Laken Riley.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) confirmed Sunday that Ibarra had been encountered by Customs and Border Protection (CBP) on Sept. 8, 2022, after entering the country near El Paso and was “paroled and released for further processing.”
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ICE also said that Ibarra had been arrested by the New York Police Department a year later, on Aug 31, 2023, and “charged with acting in a manner to injure a child less than 17 and a motor vehicle license violation.” He was released before ICE could issue a detainer, the agency said.
In its statement, ICE said its Enforcement and Removal Operations office in Atlanta “encountered Ibarra pursuant to his arrest by the University of Georgia Police Department and being charged with murder and other crimes. ERO Atlanta lodged a detainer.”
Police have charged Ibarra with malice murder, felony murder, aggravated battery, aggravated assault, false imprisonment, kidnapping, hindering a 911 call and concealing the death of another, authorities said on Friday.
The case has renewed concerns about the mass release of migrants into the U.S. in recent years and the crimes that are being committed by those being released into the U.S. Republicans are also presenting the release of Ibarra into the interior as a consequence of Biden administration policies. Humanitarian parole, under which Ibarra was released, is supposed to be used on a case-by-case basis for urgent humanitarian reasons or significant public benefit. Republicans have accused the Biden administration of abusing its authority with regard to mass releases, something the administration has repeatedly denied.
In the letter, Green says the death “further underscores the Committee’s serious concerns about the security of our nation, and the potential for criminal aliens to take advantage of the glaring vulnerabilities created by the Biden administration’s open-border policies.”
His letter requests Ibarra’s Alien File, all information in the ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations’ database related to him, and all documents from Mayorkas’ office and CBP and ICE related to Ibarra.
Republicans in the House recently impeached Mayorkas over his handling of the crisis at the border, and Green — whose committee investigated Mayorkas — tied the murder to the administration’s policies.
“If Secretary Mayorkas had chosen to comply with the laws of the United States, kept his solemn oath to defend the Constitution, and done his statutory duty to secure our borders and our homeland, Laken Riley would almost certainly be alive today,” the Tennessee Republican said in a statement.
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“Instead, we know that under his policy of unlawful mass parole, this individual was released into the country and essentially allowed to roam free, from Texas to New York to Georgia. Congress and the American people have a right to these documents and to know why this man was released into the interior, and how DHS has responded to his murderous actions,” he said.
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A DHS spokesperson referred Fox to ICE’s statement issued over the weekend.
“The Department cannot publicly comment further on an ongoing criminal investigation and we respond to congressional correspondence directly via official channels,” they said. “This was a horrific and senseless crime, and the individual responsible must be prosecuted to the fullest extent under the law. Our hearts go out to Laken Riley’s family.”
Mayorkas and DHS have denied that the administration is abusing the parole authority, arguing that those allowed in are done so on a case-by-case basis and noting broad use of the authority in the past across multiple administrations. They have also denied claims of an “open-border” policy by pointing to more than 500,000 removals since May and record seizures of fentanyl at the border.
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The administration has also said it is working to deal with a hemisphere-wide crisis and is working within a “broken system” that requires additional funding and comprehensive immigration reform to fix it. Most recently, it has been urging the passage of a bipartisan border bill that would restrict asylum and provide additional personnel at the border, a bill that has so far failed to pass the Senate. Conservatives have said the bill would normalize already high levels of illegal immigration.
Fox News Digital has reached out to DHS for comment.