A Venezuelan illegal immigrant was convicted of murder on Wednesday in the killing of Laken Riley, the University of Georgia student whose death helped fuel the nationwide backlash to illegal immigration.

Athens-Clarke County Superior Court Judge H. Patrick Haggard reached his verdict after Jose Ibarra waived his right to a jury trial. After his arrest, federal authorities revealed that Ibarra had entered the United States illegally in 2022 but was permitted to remain on American soil as his asylum claim was being processed.

It was also revealed that a taxpayer-funded flight departing from Kennedy Airport in Queens in September of 2023 is how Ibarra arrived in Athens, Georgia after receiving a taxpayer-funded hotel room at the Roosevelt Hotel in Manhattan. The hotel had been converted into a temporary migrant in-take center by New York City to quell the migrant crisis facing the Big Apple.

“In Manhattan, we requested for a humanitarian flight to come here to Atlanta,” Ibarra’s former roommate testified through an interpreter.

More than twelve law-enforcement officials were called as witnesses in the trial, which began Friday. Prosecutors also heard from the 22-year-old’s roommate and from one of his neighbors.

Defense attorney Dustin Kirby shared that Riley’s death was indeed tragic but labelled the evidence brought to bear against his client “circumstantial”. “The evidence that anyone had any intent or certainly committed any sexual assault is speculation,” he added.

Prosecutor Sheila Ross said that Ibarra had initially engaged with Riley while she was running on campus with the intention of raping her before a fatal struggle ensued.

Ross described the brutality of the encounter, claiming Ibarra had gone “hunting for females’’ on campus before he “bashed her skull in with a rock repeatedly.’’

The prosecution revealed that Ibarra’s DNA was identified underneath Riley’s fingernails while also possessing digital evidence linking him to the scene.

Riley’s chilling death quickly found its way into the political arena as Republicans pinned the blame on President Biden’s lax immigration policies and lackluster border security.

“Crooked Joe Biden’s Border INVASION is destroying our country and killing our citizens!” former president Donald Trump posted in the wake of Riley’s murder.

Biden’s March State of the Union address saw Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene wearing a shirt with the phrase “Say Her Name” in addition to passing out pins designed to honor the Georgia student.

Ibarra’s sentencing will be done by Haggard later in the day. The district attorney’s office has previously hinted that it will pursue life imprisonment without parole if Ibarra was to be convicted.