Incoming Border Czar Tom Homan became emotional while discussing the tragic murder of University of Georgia nursing student Laken Riley, who was killed by an illegal immigrant. Jose Ibarra, a 26-year-old illegal immigrant from Venezuela, was convicted on multiple charges after waiving his right to a jury trial on Tuesday. The charges included malice murder, felony murder, and aggravated assault with intent to rape. Judge H. Patrick Haggard found Ibarra guilty on all 10 counts and sentenced him to life in prison without the possibility of parole after a harrowing trial that garnered national attention.
Riley, 22, was out for a jog when she was abducted, assaulted, and killed. Her body was found hours later in a wooded area near the trail she often ran. Riley fought her attacker for 18 minutes, leaving crucial forensic evidence that ultimately led to Jose Ibarra’s conviction. In order to overpower her, Ibarra smashed her head with a rock and she was found half-naked. Police were able to determine the exact moment she died because she was wearing a personal health monitoring device that revealed when her heart stopped.
On Tuesday evening, former ICE Director Homan appeared on Fox News with Laura Ingraham to discuss the case. Homan is set to lead President-elect Trump’s mass deportation and border security initiatives when Trump takes office in January. “You know, Laura, a lot of people ask me why I get so emotional when I do Fox News and why I get, why I scream at members of Congress. Because I’ve seen so much tragedy. I’ve talked to hundreds of angels and moms and dads who buried their children because they were killed by illegal aliens. This is the latest,” Homan began.
“You know, I’ve talked to little girls as young as nine years old that were raped multiple times by members of the cartel. When you look in her eyes and everything innocent and pure has been ripped from her soul, and her life will never be the same. I mean, it’s just, I’m tired of it,” he continued. “And the government failed the Laken Riley family. Not only if President Trump was president, he’d be sitting in Mexico under the Remain in Mexico program. And if he did get to New York, and he was arrested for injury to a child in New York, I should be able to arrest him because the prior is under Trump, where if you’re in the country illegally, you’re a target.”
“So this is purely, it could have been prevented, this young lady’s dead, and I want every mayor, every governor of a sanctuary jurisdiction to listen to that tape, listen to this young girl fight for her life, fight for her breath, trying to survive, terrified. I want you to understand what she went through,” he said. During his first tenure with ICE, Tom Homan delivered numerous impactful testimonies during congressional hearings. He often recalls a particularly haunting incident where he recovered the body of a five-year-old boy in the back of a tractor-trailer near the U.S.-Mexico border.
“I held, I found him dead, [he] baked to death. I thought about what the last hour of his life was like,” Homan told Ingraham. “You need to listen to this tape. And for those governors and mayors that are saying they’re going to stop Tom Homan, they’re going to stop President Trump, shame on you. Your responsibility is to protect your communities, and that’s what we want to do, is protect your community.”
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