Republicans call for investigation into undocumented individual suspected in Laken Riley’s murder

Republican committee chairmen Reps. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, and Tom McClintock, R-Calif., sent a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on Tuesday demanding information on the illegal migrant suspected of killing nursing student Laken Riley in Georgia.

Jordan, chairman of the House Judiciary and McClintock, Subcommittee on Immigration Integrity, Security, and Enforcement chair, are seeking documentation related to Jose Antonio Ibarra, who faces multiple murder and assault charges in the death of the 22-year-old Riley, who died from blunt force trauma while out for a run on the University of Georgia campus.

Ibarra and his brother, Diego Ibarra, illegally entered the U.S. from Venezuela in September 2022, and then the Biden Administration released Ibarra into the United States, as stated in the letter.

Jose Ibarra was later arrested on Sept. 14, 2023, by New York Police Department officers and charged with acting in a manner to injure a child less than age 17 and a motor vehicle license violation.

“Criminal aliens exploit vulnerabilities in our nation’s immigration system to the detriment of those in the United States,” Jordan and McClintock wrote. “The Biden Administration’s border and immigration policies only increase the likelihood that criminal aliens will successfully enter and remain in the U.S.”

Jordan and McClintock have given Mayorkas until March 12 to provide Jose Ibarra’s case history, alien file, history of entries into the U.S., and whether CBP officials were alerted to derogatory information about the alien and what questions were asked during the screening process.

Riley, a nursing student at Augusta University, was found dead after not returning from a morning run in a wooded area of the University of Georgia campus. Diego Ibarra had been arrested multiple times in Athens, Georgia, since entering the U.S. He was charged with possessing a fraudulent U.S. permanent resident card on the same day his brother was charged with Riley’s murder.

Mayorkas was impeached by the House earlier this month and faces a potential trial in the Senate. However, it’s expected that Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., will push for dismissal, which requires a simple majority in the Democrat-led Senate.