Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-New York) came under fire for appearing to close his eyes and bow his head during congressional testimony Tuesday about the impact of immigrant crime on victim families, sparking criticism that Democratic leadership is not taking the issue seriously and is disrespecting those offering condolences.
After the incident infuriated audience members, Reps. Chip Roy (R-Texas) and Dan Bishop (R-North Carolina) blasted the ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee.
The photo shows a box of tissues in the foreground and an aide looking at his phone next to Nadler, as mothers who have lost daughters to suspected foreign rapists and murderers tell the committee their heartbreaking stories of loss.
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Rep. Jerrold Nadler bows his head and closes his eyes during congressional testimony from mothers of murder victims, Tuesday, Sept. 10, 2024. (Kathy Groenewald)
“One of the women who came with me took pictures of the Democrats on the other side while we were talking and telling our stories. We were mothers crying and telling our stories, one was sleeping, the other was on her phone,” said Patty Morin, whose daughter Rachel was attacked, brutally raped and murdered by an illegal immigrant on a jogging path near her Maryland home, according to police.
Kathy Groenewald, a church friend of Morin's who took the photo, said she found Nadler's behavior extremely unpleasant.
“I was astonished by the nonchalance of Jerry Nadler and the man sitting to his right,” she told Fox News Digital. “Women who have lost children to fentanyl and the most brutal murders imaginable are pouring out their hearts and they don't have the common courtesy to stand up and give them their full attention.”
She said Nadler and other Democrats appeared to be treating the hearing as a partisan “stunt.”
“I'm sorry, but these women are drawing attention to a serious issue,” she said. “This is not an advertisement, and no one was forced to come.”
Morin's 37-year-old daughter was a mother of five and a small business owner. The suspect in her murder, a 23-year-old Salvadoran man named Victor Antonio Martinez Hernandez, is accused of killing another woman in his home country and of breaking into her Los Angeles home and sexually assaulting the woman and her 9-year-old daughter.
Illegal immigrant accused of murdering Maryland mother Rachel Morin faces maximum sentence if convicted
Rachel Morin was dragged off a hiking trail and murdered on August 5, 2023. (Handouts for families)
Prosecutors accuse him of a horrific assault that left Ms. Morin with severe head injuries and bruising in Bel Air, about 30 miles northeast of Baltimore, where her body was discovered stuffed into a culvert.
Speaking to Fox News Digital after the hearing, Patty Morin said she wasn't there to take part in a partisan campaign rally, but rather to persuade lawmakers to take immigration crime seriously.
“This is an American problem, and if we don't do something, families will be in dire straits,” she said. “I don't want other families, other mothers to go through what I'm feeling. The pain is indescribable. It's not like time heals everything, it's not going to go away. It doesn't. The pain remains. You just learn to live with the pain.”
Rachel Morin's family slams Biden-Harris for their silence on the illegal criminal murder.
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But she said she didn't feel her message got through to them.
“I was very disappointed,” she said.
Nadler's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Patty Morin tears and holds tissues as she testifies before the House Judiciary Committee about the brutal murder of her daughter, Tuesday, Sept. 10, 2024. (House of Representatives Judiciary Committee)
At the beginning of the hearing, the longtime New York congressman offered his condolences to the witnesses.
“I can't imagine how hard this loss must have been for you,” he said.
He then began calling the hearing “another partisan hearing designed to divide us and score political points before the election.”
Four of the eight witnesses have lost children in connection to the border crisis.
Victor Antonio Martinez Hernandez, 23, arrived in Maryland to face charges of first-degree murder and first-degree rape in the death of Rachel Morin of Bel Air, Maryland. (Jerry Jackson/Baltimore Sun/Getty Images)
Trump meets with Rachel Morin and her family at Maryland border after mother of five killed by suspected illegal immigrant
Seated to Morin's left was Ann Fundner, whose son Weston died of fentanyl poisoning that she blames on Mexican drug cartels and Chinese chemicals that are allowed to cross freely across the southern border.
“My son did not need to die,” she told the committee. “His life was cut short because of a political decision, a decision made by people in positions of power, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.”
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To Morin's right was Alexis Nungarei, the mother of 12-year-old Jocelyn Nungarei, who authorities say had been strangled, bound, sexually assaulted and then pushed off a bridge.
Two illegal immigrants from Venezuela have been charged with murder in the case.
“Due to the Biden-Harris Administration's open border, capture and release policy, they were enrolled in the Alternatives to Detention Program,” Nungarayi told lawmakers, “which means they were released into the United States. It was less than three weeks later that they took the life of my daughter, Jocelyn Nungarayi.”
Tammy Nobles also testified about the murder of her daughter, Kayla Hamilton, who was strangled and sexually assaulted in her bed at the hands of MS-13 members who entered the U.S. illegally in 2020.
Aberdeen police released a photo assortment of Kayla Hamilton, who was murdered in her bed by an MS-13 member and illegal immigrant from El Salvador. (Aberdeen Police Department)
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Nobles said the suspect in the case, Walter Javier Martinez, is serving a 70-year sentence for the crimes and has confessed in writing to four murders and two rapes.
“This is not a political issue, it is an issue about the safety of every person living in the United States,” she told the committee. “Not only was Kayla's life endangered and taken, but so many other children and adults were put at risk.”
