HOUSTON – Family members of a 12-year-old Houston girl who police say was killed by two Venezuelan men who entered the U.S. illegally said Friday that they are supporting legislation that would severely limit the ability of federal immigration authorities to release immigrants they detain.
The proposed legislation runs counter to what migrants' rights groups advocate — a move away from detention — with one such advocate calling the measure an effort “to bloat the immigration enforcement system” and “to demonize immigrant communities.”
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Venezuelan nationals Johan Jose Martinez-Rangel, 22, and Franklin Jose Peña Ramos, 26, have been charged with capital murder in the death of Jocelyn Nungaray, whose body was found in a creek June 17 after she disappeared during a walk to a convenience store. A medical examiner concluded that she was strangled.
The two men entered the United States illegally earlier this year on separate occasions near El Paso. They were arrested by the U.S. Border Patrol but later released with orders to appear in court at a later date, according to the U.S. Department of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE.
Their release came through ICE’s Alternatives to Detention programs, which allow detained immigrants to be freed while their immigration cases are pending. ICE uses GPS monitoring, phone calls and a phone app to monitor them and ensure they make their court appearances.
“The two men who ripped my daughter away from me should have never been here. They should never have been roaming our streets freely, as freely as they were,” Alexis Nungaray, Jocelyn Nungaray’s mother, said at a news conference.
Following the girl's death, U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz and U.S. Rep. Troy Nehls, both Republicans from Texas, introduced legislation called the “Justice for Jocelyn Act.” It would prevent federal authorities from releasing a detained immigrant if there are open beds available at a detention center.
If detained immigrants are released, they would be subject to continuous GPS monitoring and have a nightly curfew, and any violation of the terms of their release would result in immediate deportation.
“These are crimes committed by illegal immigrants who were apprehended and that the Biden-Harris administration chose to release,” Cruz said.
Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg, a Democrat, said she supports the legislation because “it will make us safer and because crime is bigger than partisanship.”
Republicans have used recent cases of immigrants who entered the country illegally and were charged with crimes to attack what they say are President Joe Biden’s failed immigration policies. In Georgia, the arrest of a Venezuelan man accused of killing nursing student Laken Hope Riley became a flashpoint in the national debate over immigration. The suspect, Jose Ibarra, appeared in court Friday as his attorneys have asked his case be moved to another county.
Nayna Gupta, director of policy for the Chicago-based National Immigrant Justice Center, said the proposed legislation is “seeking to exploit ... an awful situation.”
Gupta said it would eliminate the limited due process that detained immigrants have to make the case that they are not a danger and should not be held in a “detention system where deaths, abuse and medical neglect are really increasing with alarming frequency.” The bill's mandatory GPS monitoring would be a “huge expansion” of ICE's surveillance system, Gupta added.
“This bill is just an attempt to bloat the immigration enforcement system in a politicized manner by fearmongering and using a tragic incident, again, to demonize immigrant communities,” she said.
A spokesperson for ICE did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment on its Alternatives to Detention programs, which have been in place since 2004.
On its website, ICE says participants are thoroughly vetted and immigration officers review several factors, including criminal and supervision history and family and community ties.
Migrants' rights groups have urged federal authorities to rely less on detention, saying it is inefficient and ineffective and alternatives are more humane and cost-effective.
Many studies have found that immigrants are less drawn to violent crime than native-born citizens.
“Does our immigration system need to be fixed? Yes. But not because of these individual crimes. It needs to be fixed because it’s been broken and outdated now for decades,” Gupta said.
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