The head of the governing body of Harris County, Texas, has urged leaders not to vilify immigrants in the murder of a 12-year-old girl who was found strangled to death last week.
Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo said Tuesday that “bad things happen regardless of immigration status” and urged authorities not to politicize the death of Jocelyn Nungaray, two illegal immigrants from Venezuela charged with her murder.
“It has absolutely no bearing on why they committed this crime,” she said Tuesday at the start of a Harris County court session.
Hidalgo also blamed former President Trump and Republican lawmakers for creating the circumstances that led to Nungaray’s death.
“The evidence is clear that a sexual assault likely occurred,” prosecutors say
Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo appears to be politicizing the death of Jocelyn Nangaray and the undocumented immigrant suspected in her strangulation. (Fox News)
“The fact that two immigrants committed this horrific crime does not mean that they committed it because they are immigrants,” she said. “When tragedies occur, it’s very easy to vilify an entire community, and that’s always an easy political strategy.”
Fox News Digital has reached out to Hidalgo’s office.
Prosecutors said the suspects in Nungaray’s murder, Johan Jose Rangel Martinez, 21, and Franklin Jose Peña Ramos, 26, met on the way from Venezuela to the United States and then met up in Houston.
Authorities said the assailants lured Nungarei under a bridge on June 16, sexually assaulted her, strangled her to death and left her in a creek. Prosecutors said Nungarei’s hands and feet were bound, she was naked from the waist down and had signs of being dragged around her neck and abrasions on her back.
The suspected illegal immigrant accused of killing Jocelyn Nangaray was wearing an ice ankle monitor.
President Biden, Jocelyn Nangaray, Former President Trump (Getty Images)
Martinez told authorities he tied Jocelyn’s legs and told Ramos to throw her in the bayou. Authorities allege Martinez had bite marks and scratches on his arms and that he had shaved his beard to avoid detection.
Hidalgo said during Tuesday’s meeting that Democratic and Republican lawmakers had initially agreed to an immigration bill that would have kept Martinez and Ramos in Mexico and deported anyone who did not enter the U.S. through a legal point of entry.
“The former president decided he didn’t want Biden to win on immigration and he instructed his party to withdraw from that agreement. So to blame current immigration policy is entirely political and it really hurts to see people politicizing the grief of that tragedy,” she said.
District 3 Commissioner Tom Ramsey said FOX Houston The county has become a sanctuary county, a haven for criminal illegal immigrants.
Bail for Jocelyn Nangaray murder suspect set at $10 million
Franklin Jose Peña Ramos (left) and Johan Jose Martinez Rangel are charged with the murder of Jocelyn Nungaray in Houston. (Harris County Jail)
“Judging by these policies, by our unwillingness to get involved, I would say yes. I think people know they are coming here with bad intentions, crossing the border, doing bad things,” Ramsey said. “They know they can come to Houston, Texas, the third most populous city in the United States, and do something really bad and not get caught, and nothing will happen to them.”
“If they went a few counties north of us something would happen, but they don’t,” Ramsey added. “They’re staying put. I think you’re right. This is a ‘sanctuary county’ and we have to reverse that.”
Hidalgo suggested that if lawmakers are so concerned about the influx of illegal immigrants, they should make it a crime for employers to hire illegal immigrants.
Jocelyn Nangaray, 12, was found strangled to death in a creek in Houston. (Courtesy of Fox Houston and the Nungarei Family)
Click here to get the FOX News app
“I give Trump’s party credit for that now. Of course, they don’t actually want to make illegal immigration illegal, because they know that our economy runs on immigrants and this country can’t function without them. So, the bad stuff happens regardless of immigrant status,” Hidalgo said. “It has nothing to do with why they committed this crime.”
