By Ana Milena Varon
Los Angeles – The murder of a university student in Georgia, allegedly committed by a recently arrived Venezuelan immigrant, represents – according to experts told EFE – a new and recurring “workhorse” for the Republicans in the presidential elections, in this case against the immigration policy of the Biden Administration.
José Antonio Ibarra, 26, was arrested and charged last Friday with the murder of student Laken Hope Riley, 22, while she was running on the University of Georgia campus in the city of Athens on February 22.
Ibarra entered through the border with Mexico in 2022 as part of the massive wave of migrants who have arrived in the country requesting asylum.
A day after Ibarra’s arrest was announced, Georgia Governor Brian P. Kemp, Republican, sent a letter to President Joe Biden “demanding a response regarding Ibarra’s immigration status.”
“Every state is now a border state due to Joe Biden’s inaction, and today I again demand answers and information from the Administration that will help us protect our citizens when the federal government fails to do so,” the governor said.
The Republican highlighted in a statement that he has sent soldiers from that state’s National Guard to the country’s southern border.
Kemp also asked the White House for information about the asylum request of the suspect’s brother, Diego Ibarra, 29, who was arrested and charged for presenting a false resident card (‘green card’) when questioned by the Police in means of research.
“This case has given the Republicans more fire to go against Biden and his government, and it will continue to be heard until the November election,” Octavio Pescador, professor and political analyst at the University of California Los Angeles, told EFE ( UCLA).
“Immigration is today the most important issue of the election and the Republicans are going to try to maintain it, and the death of this young woman is a new workhorse to attract voters,” he added.
The professor predicts that the case will surely also be heard in the impeachment trial against the Secretary of Homeland Security (DHS), Alejandro Mayorkas, promoted by the Republicans.
For his part, Miguel Tinker Salas, political analyst and retired professor of Latin American Studies at Pomona University, assumes that Riley’s murder will be used in a similar way to the death of Kate Steinle, which occurred on July 1, 2015 on a San Francisco pier. (California), which served then-candidate Donald Trump to fuel his campaign with the immigration issue.
The history of criminalization repeats itself
Steinle died after Mexican José García Zárate, who had been deported five times, dropped a loaded gun he had found.
After winning the elections, former President Trump (2017-2021) used the case to go against the cities declared “sanctuaries” for immigrants, which he blamed for overlapping undocumented immigrants.
“It was a campaign in which immigrants were arbitrarily criminalized. Now we are in the same scenario, even without the suspect having been tried,” Tinker Salas told EFE.
He gives, for example, comments made by Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene who accused President Biden, Mayorkas and Democrats of having “blood on their hands” due to Riley’s murder.
For her part, the Republican Senate candidate for Arizona, Kari Lake, blamed the murder on “corrupt politicians” in Washington such as Democratic Congressman Rubén Gallego, with whom she is competing this year for that seat.
Trump, who is scheduled to travel to the US southern border this Thursday, which will coincide with President Biden’s presence there, has already made reference to the murder in a message on the Truth Social social network.
The former president, the favorite to be the party’s candidate in November, stressed that “the border invasion is destroying our country and killing our citizens” and promised again the “largest deportation of illegal criminals in the history of the United States” if he is re-elected .
“Unfortunately, all this rhetoric is already bearing fruit even within the immigrant communities themselves. Venezuelans who have lived for years are distancing themselves from their recently arrived compatriots. This already happened with the Cuban exodus from Mariel,” Tinker Salas pointed out.
“Let’s hope the Democratic campaign doesn’t play along with the Republicans,” he added.
Keep reading:
The wife of the Venezuelan suspected of murdering the student in Georgia spoke: “He was not aggressive”
They arrested the brother of the suspect who murdered a student in Georgia: he had a fake green card
Sheriffs blame the immigration crisis for the murder of Laken Riley at the hands of an undocumented Hispanic