Mothers of migrant murder victims criticize “preventable” crimes at hearing on “Biden-Harris border crisis”

Four mothers of children lost due to criminal acts by people accused of living or entering the country illegally say the situation has gotten worse in 2021 and will continue to worsen, even leading to war on American soil.

“I believe if things continue like this, we're going to have a war on our soil,” Patty Morin told U.S. Rep. Dan Bishop, R-N.C., on Tuesday when he asked her during a House Judiciary Committee hearing, “Do you think it's worse, and do you think it can get any worse than it is now?”

Morin, Tammy Nobles, Anne Fundner and Alexis Nungaray – mothers of victims – and four others participated in the hearing, “The Biden-Harris Border Crisis: Victims’ Perspectives.”

Bishop said: “This crisis is deadly. It is unsustainable and getting worse. And all of this was entirely preventable.”

The affidavit was given on the day of the presidential debate between Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris and Republican former President Donald Trump.

On the same day, CNN also published a questionnaire for 2019 ACLU candidates that Harris, then a presidential candidate, reportedly filled out. It said she would not detain immigrants living in the country illegally and would look for ways to offer medical procedures for gender reassignment.

“We are seeing more and more cases every day, far, far too many,” Nobles said of the situation at the border.

She is the mother of 20-year-old Kayla Hamilton, who was raped and killed in Aberdeen, Maryland in July 2022. She was autistic. Walter Javier Martinez was convicted, sentenced to prison, and is considered a member of the MS-13 gang.

Morin is the mother of 38-year-old Rachel Morin, who was killed on the Ma & Pa Trail in Bel Air, Maryland in August 2023. Victor Martinez-Hernandez, 23, is charged and police say he entered the United States illegally.

She said that what is happening across the country is being ignored.

“I was just telling one of the gentlemen that I was at the border, that I met some people there and saw who lives on the border,” she testified. “I was also in New England a week ago and was amazed at the amount of immigrants from Congo, from Sudan, from South America in northern New England. It's unheard of. In Massachusetts, they spent over $1.5 billion.”

In February 2022, 15-year-old Weston Fundner died in Southern California from fentanyl poisoning and not an overdose, his mother says.

She said he was trying something someone had given him, a situation she had previously described as “the tragic reality of open borders.”

“The number of deaths is increasing every year,” Anne Funder testified. “I mean, this is happening on American soil. Since 2021, under the Biden-Harris administration, 300,000 people have died, and the number continues to grow. We expect it to be many more this year. And we have reports that the numbers are currently underestimated. And that doesn't surprise me, because it's disgraceful. It's getting 100% worse.”

Three months ago, 12-year-old Jocelyn Nungaray was found strangled in Houston.

Alexis Nungaray said that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's compliance with arrest warrants – a sticking point for Democratic lawmakers and some Democratic sheriffs in North Carolina, where Bishop is running for attorney general – could improve the situation.

“I think it's getting worse,” she said, “and it's going to continue to get worse unless we use every detention center and every detention bed to hold them until their immigration court hearings. That's how we can affirm U.S. citizens and make sure that we have no concerns about allowing new people into this country, because they're taking our future, our children.”

Joining them at the witness table were April Aguirre, crime victim advocate, Sheriff Mike Boudreaux of Tulane County, California, Melissa Lopez, executive director of Estrella del Paso, formerly known as Diocesan Migrant and Refugee Services, and Dr. Cecilia Farfan-Mendez of the University of California San Diego, an associate researcher at the Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation.

The hearing was tearful and filled with awkward moments. Bishop chided Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) for laughing loudly as he listed the names of those killed; on social media, he posted a photo of Ranking Member Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) with his eyes closed.

In the nearly five minutes, Bishop told several stories of fatal accidents involving the MS-13 gang in the Charlotte area of ​​Mecklenburg and Gaston counties, remembered Laken Riley from Georgia, and recounted a shooting on a San Francisco pier in 2015 that was initially thought to be random and unusual.

He also referred to Springfield, Ohio, where Haitian migrants were recently accused of killing pets to eat them.

“I don't know if it's happening. We'll find out,” he said, adding, “They also denied the Aurora thing.”

That would be Aurora, Colorado, where immigrants allegedly occupied a residential building.

“Conditions in the United States are not the same as in the countries that people are fleeing,” Bishop said. He paused between each word and said, “That's why they're fleeing.”