Republican Rep. Chip Roy of Texas on Tuesday grilled Attorney General Merrick Garland about the Department of Justice’s lawsuit against Texas to block the state from enforcing border security measures.
Garland was testifying before the Republican-led House Judiciary Committee’s annual oversight hearing, where he was asked about the case against the Lone Star State. In his remarks, Roy pointed to the deaths of Lizbeth Medina and Laken Riley, both of whom were allegedly murdered by illegal immigrants.
To secure its border with Mexico and deal with a surge in migrants, Texas has opted to bus migrants into Democrat-led cities to enforce immigration laws and ease chaos in border towns. The Department of Justice is suing the state over SB 4, which allows local police to arrest undocumented immigrants and allows judges to order their deportation.
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Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) grilled Attorney General Merrick Garland about illegal immigration during a House hearing on Tuesday. (Getty Images)
“The federal government continues to fail to secure the U.S. border, Americans are being killed and shot, two young women have been killed,” Roy said. “Do you believe Texas has a right to defend its own country and ensure that the people who are here are not illegal aliens?”
Attorney General Garland said his heart goes out to the families of those killed by illegal immigrants.
“Secondly, as attorney general, the way I would stop these people from coming into the United States is to give more resources to the Border Patrol,” he replied, but was cut off by Roy.
“If we had followed the law, Lizbeth Medina would be here alive today,” Roy said. “If we hadn’t released murderers onto the streets of the United States of America through the parole policies pursued by this Administration, Laken Riley would be here today.”
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Laken Riley and Lizbeth Medina were allegedly killed by illegal immigrants in Texas and Georgia, respectively, between Dec. 5, 2023, and Feb. 22, 2024. (Facebook)
“The Department of Justice is suing Texas in court and spending valuable resources against the people of Texas, while the state of Texas is simply saying that when the federal government isn’t doing its job, Texas should have the power to stop, arrest and deal with illegal aliens on its own terms,” he added.
If the Justice Department and President Biden refuse to enforce immigration laws, money won’t solve the problem, Roy said.
Medina, a 16-year-old high school cheerleader from Texas, was found dead in the bathtub of her home in December 2023. Her suspected killer, Rafael Govea Romero, a 24-year-old illegal immigrant from Mexico, is accused of stalking Medina, a high school cheerleader and aspiring nurse, hitting her in the head and stabbing her at an apartment in Edna where Medina lived with her mother.
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Riley, 22, a nursing student at Augusta University in Georgia, was attacked while fleeing in February. The suspect, Jose Ibarra, 26, is from Venezuela and entered the United States illegally from El Paso, Texas, in September 2022 and was on parole.
