By Staff Reporter |
In an admission that his own party is failing on the border crisis, former President Bill Clinton alluded to the illegal immigrant murder of Laken Riley — though he avoided identifying her by name, and refused to include the term “illegal” before “immigrant.”
Although Riley was a Georgia resident at the time of her death, the vocal GOP senator from Surprise, Janae Shamp, didn’t let Clinton’s avoidance of naming Riley slide. Shamp did credit Clinton for admitting that it was an illegal immigrant who took Riley’s life.
“Bill Clinton her name is Laken Riley and she was dedicating her life to the sick as a fellow RN when she was brutally murdered by an illegal Venezuelan gang member,” said Shamp. “But yes, it is Biden-Harris fault entirely.”
Clinton alluded to Riley’s murder in remarks with Georgia voters over the weekend. The former president was visiting the state as part of campaign efforts promoting the presidential bid of Vice President Kamala Harris.
Clinton reduced Riley’s murder to the GOP’s political ads focused on the injustice and avoidability of her death, and pivoted to promoting the need for mass immigration to offset low U.S. birth rates.
“You had a case in Georgia not very long ago, didn’t you? They made an ad about it, about a young woman who had been killed by an immigrant?” said Clinton. “Yeah, well, if they’d all been properly vetted that probably wouldn’t have happened. But if they are properly vetted, that doesn’t happen and America is not having enough babies to keep our population up. So, we need immigrants that have been vetted to do work. There wouldn’t be a problem and he couldn’t keep people all torn up and that’s sad.”
Riley was a 22-year-old nursing student at the University of Georgia out for a morning jog on campus when 26-year-old Venezuelan gang member Jose Ibarra kidnapped, raped, and beat and strangled her to death in February. Riley did call 911 during the attack, but law enforcement said there was no dialogue on that call.
Ibarra entered the U.S. illegally in September 2022 near El Paso, Texas. He received parole despite his gang affiliations due to ICE’s inability to lodge a detainer in a timely manner or, in other words: Ibarra benefitted from the unofficial “catch and release” policy that has come to define the Biden administration’s immigration approach.
President Joe Biden downplayed Riley’s death during the 2024 State of the Union earlier this year, mispronouncing her name as “Lincoln” Riley.
“Lincoln — Lincoln Riley, an innocent young woman who was killed by an illegal,” said Biden. “That’s right, but how many of the thousands of people [are] being killed by illegals?”
In March, the House passed the “Laken Riley Act” requiring detention of immigrants who commit burglary or theft. From his time entering the country illegally in 2022, Ibarra had been previously arrested for theft.
Ibarra’s trial is anticipated to occur in November. He has pleaded not guilty to the multiple charges he faces.
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