The brutal murder of Georgia nursing student Laken Riley is the latest in a string of violent crimes allegedly committed by immigrants who were released into the United States after crossing the southern border illegally under President Joe Biden.
More than 6 million illegal immigrants have come across the U.S.-Mexico border since 2021 and have been arrested by federal police. Overwhelmed Border Patrol agents and facilities have been forced at leadership’s discretion to release countless immigrants into the country rather than deport them.
Although immigrants arrested for crossing illegally are supposed to undergo background checks, those checks only scan against the FBI terrorist watch list and U.S. criminal databases, leaving an individual’s criminal record in other countries unknown.
Crime committed by illegal immigrants is not a new phenomenon. The 2015 shooting death of Californian Kate Steinle led San Francisco police to arrest and charge five-time deported Mexican illegal immigrant Jose Inez Garcia Zarate. The suspect was eventually not convicted for her death.
The event prompted Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) to introduce Kate’s Law. The bill would change federal law to require a mandatory five-year minimum prison sentence for any illegal immigrant with prior criminal convictions who is arrested on new charges. Last year, Cruz and other Republicans reintroduced the bill after years of unsuccessful trying to pass the legislation.
But as more immigrants are released into the country after crossing the southern border illegally, media reports of violent crime have frequently documented instances where suspects were identified by law enforcement as illegal immigrants.
Below is a list of five incidents in the past six months in which illegal immigrants were arrested in murder and homicide cases:
Maryland
An illegal immigrant from El Salvador was arrested in Langley Park, Maryland, in February for the death of a 2-year-old boy who was shot and killed.
Prince George’s County Police Department charged Nilson Trejo-Granados, 25, with first- and second-degree murder for shooting the boy, Jeremy Poou Caceres, while his mother had taken him on a walk. Police told the DailyMail that the gunfire “was intended for Jeremy and his mom.”
The suspect was previously charged in Maryland with theft, at which point U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement attempted to have local police hold him in custody until they could transfer him to federal custody. The local officials refused, setting Trejo-Granados free.
He was arrested again in the state in September and again ICE’s request was denied.
Trejo-Granados had been ordered deported by a federal immigration judge in Newark, New Jersey, in November 2022, but ICE had not been able to take him into custody.
Minnesota
In January, two men and one woman were killed by a man who posed as a UPS delivery truck driver at their home in a Minneapolis suburb.
The fake UPS employee, Alonzo Pierre Mingo, was charged with three second-degree murder charges when he and two accomplices fatally shot the three adults in the home, 42-year-old Shannon Patricia Jungwirth, her son, 20-year-old Jorge Alexander Reyes-Jungwirth, and her husband, 39-year-old Alberto Trejo Estrada.
The suspect was previously detained by ICE, according to a 2019 court document. He was convicted in federal court in Minnesota of felony gun possession in 2020. UPS confirmed to Fox News that the company had hired him as a seasonal employee.
Colorado
In December, a Denver woman and her teenage son were killed after being struck by a drunk driver speeding at 100 mph.
Salvadoran citizen Jose Guadalupe Menjivar-Alas, who was previously deported four times between 2009 and 2015, was arrested in the deaths of Melissa Powell, 47, and her son, 16-year-old Riordan Powell, on Dec. 12, 2023.
After each removal, Menjivar-Alas illegally reentered the country but was not apprehended by Border Patrol agents. He was arrested in Boulder County four times for alcohol-related driving offenses in 2007, 2016, and 2019, according to a local Fox News outlet.
Texas
Illegal immigrant Jose Santiago Chairez was arrested and will face charges of capital murder and aggravated assault for the murders of two sisters and shooting his daughter in Dallas over Thanksgiving weekend last year.
The victims, 47-year-old Catalina Valdez Andrade and 43-year-old Merced Andrade Ballon, were shot in the head on Nov. 24 at their home in Farmers Branch, Texas.
The daughter told police that her father had shot all three. Police have not disclosed a motive behind the attack.
ICE has asked local police to keep Chairez in custody until he can be transferred to federal custody.
Ohio
A Haitian illegal immigrant who came across the border illegally in August 2022 was charged in September for causing a vehicle crash that injured 26 school children and killed 11-year-old Aiden Clark.
Hermanio Joseph was driving in Lawrenceville, Ohio, when his minivan drifted across the center line and crashed into an oncoming Northwestern Local Schools bus on Aug. 22, 2023.
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The bus swerved off the side of the road and overturned into an embankment. The bus did not have seatbelts for students to wear.
Local police found Joseph was driving with an invalid license, which he had obtained from the Mexican government. He faces a fourth-degree felony vehicular homicide charge.
