As our nation's capital prepares for the January transition, expect corporate media to expend significant energy in restoring Joe Biden's presidency to historic proportions. Much about how he was well-intentioned, how he inherited many intractable problems, and how he should be remembered for running the country during a tumultuous moment in history. will be written and spoken.
This is complete nonsense and should be ignored. A lasting memory of the Biden presidency will be the face of Jose Ibarra, an undocumented immigrant who was recently convicted of murdering 22-year-old Georgia nursing student Laken Riley. His story perfectly captures the folly of Biden's immigration policy and the senseless loss of life it has caused.
Ibarra, 26, is a Venezuelan national and a member of the ruthless gang Torren de Aragua. He illegally entered the United States through the southern border near El Paso, Texas, in September 2022. Border Patrol arrested him, but he was released into the U.S. anyway under the Biden administration's catch-and-release policy.
After arriving in New York City, Ybarra stayed at the Roosevelt Hotel immigrant shelter. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials told New York news outlets that Ybarra was arrested in New York on September 14, 2023, and was charged with “injury to a child under 17 and a motor vehicle license violation.” He was charged with a crime.” However, due to New York City's sanctuary law, the New York City Police Department released Mr. Ybarra before ICE could issue a detainer for arrest and possible deportation.
Ybarra then boarded a free flight to Atlanta, paid for with federal taxpayer money, courtesy of the Biden-Harris administration. In Athens, Georgia, a district court issued a warrant for his arrest in December 2023 after he failed to appear in court on shoplifting charges. This also did not trigger Ibarra's deportation, but it did allow him to brutally kill Riley during a morning run in a park in February of this year.
A timeline of Mr. Ybarra's time in the United States shows multiple points in time when Mr. Riley's murder could have been prevented, and shows how Biden's immigration policies enabled his crimes. By halting border wall construction and implementing catch-and-release by executive order on Inauguration Day 2021, Biden will prevent threats to society like Thorn from entering this country and staying here. created the conditions. The once-great New York City hotel's immigrant shelter, funded in part by federal taxpayer funds, provided Ms. Ybarra with a place to stay and access to the hotel's “re-ticketing center,” which was funded in part by federal taxpayers. It offered immigrants one-way tickets to any destination. .
Given Ybarra's crimes prior to Riley's murder, federal authorities should have arrested him and initiated deportation proceedings. But New York state's sanctuary policy, strongly supported by the Biden administration, prevented ICE agents from detaining him. Athens' Clark County isn't officially a sanctuary jurisdiction, but thanks to Mayor Kelly Gertz's anti-border leanings, it essentially functions as one. And a totally unnecessary chain of events demonstrating the virtues of open borders resulted in completely avoidable killings of American citizens who were willing to dedicate their lives to the service of others.
While these tragic outcomes may sound far removed from Biden's Oval Office, they are not. During the 2019 Democratic presidential primary debate, Joe Biden turned to the camera and implored would-be immigrants around the world to “cross the border.” This wasn't just a cheap throwaway line for a campaign. People outside the United States seeking to enter the country illegally heard that as an invitation and responded by rushing to the southern border.
Nor is it that well-intentioned policies have failed. Kamala Harris' defeat in the presidential election was due to several questions she could not or would not answer. One is why, less than a year after becoming vice president, she and Joe Biden, even though it was clear that the border was occupied by millions of foreigners, The question was why nothing was done to resolve the situation. Why did she propose tough border security measures during the campaign when they could have been implemented almost four years ago? The border surge was no accident. It was invited and intended.
It's safe to say that Laken Riley would still be alive today if it weren't for Joe Biden's partisan social engineering experiment at the border. The same could be said for Jocelyn Nungarai, Rachel Morin, and many other innocent people who were wrongfully killed by non-citizens in this country. Joe Biden called us racists and xenophobes for daring to expect our government to secure our borders instead of protecting us from this threat.
Ignore the fabricated stories that are emerging about Joe Biden's good intentions and questionable performance over the past four years. President Biden's signature photos are of Jose Ybarra's face and Laken Riley's family crying after hearing the verdict. Biden's legacy should forever scar them like a millstone.
Brian Lonergan is director of communications at the Immigration Reform Law Institute in Washington, D.C., and co-host of IRLI's “No Border, No Country” podcast.
