The mother of a Maryland woman who was brutally murdered by an illegal immigrant said Congress’s first piece of legislation should be just the beginning of the Trump administration’s border crackdown.
Tammy Nobles, whose daughter Kayla Hamilton was sexually assaulted and then murdered by an illegal immigrant in Maryland during President Joe Biden’s tenure, told the Washington Examiner on Tuesday that the GOP bill fell short of the government’s responsibility and will do little to stop illegal immigrant crime.
President-elect Donald Trump made migrant crime a centerpiece of his campaign and asked Nobles and other parents of victims to join him at events and speak of their tragic losses. The House took the first step Tuesday of honoring those campaign pledges with the passage of the Laken Riley Act, signifying their priorities for the 119th Congress.
Walter Javier Martinez, who pleaded guilty to Hamilton’s murder, was released into the United States and ended up living in the same trailer as Hamilton and her boyfriend in Maryland after federal law enforcement let him into the country at the border, missing or ignoring his connection to Salvadoran street gang MS-13.
As is protocol, the then-underage suspect was turned over to the Department of Health and Human Services, which is tasked by Congress with caring for unaccompanied children and finding sponsors to release them to within the U.S.
House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) has also asked Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra to explain how the suspected killer was allowed into the U.S. after illegally crossing the border.
Republicans are now going all-in on the incoming Trump administration’s anti-illegal immigration agenda, even in their first course of action this Congress.
The House’s first bill in this new two-year session focused on migrant crime, a term that Trump coined during his 2024 presidential campaign to speak for crimes committed against Americans by people who have entered the U.S. unlawfully.
The Laken Riley Act, which passed through the House Tuesday afternoon by a bipartisan 264-159 vote, puts the Republican Party’s policy intentions front and center as Congress is days away from welcoming Trump’s second term.
“The bill doesn’t really solve too much. They need to make sure whoever is in DHS and HHS custody follows the proper protocols,” said Nobles in a phone call Tuesday. Gaining the ability to arrest illegal immigrants arrested on minor theft charges was a “small issue compared to the bigger issue” of federal police at the border releasing known criminals and gang members into the U.S.
“I am not against the Laken Riley bill, but there is a bigger issue. I don’t want anyone to think I am against it,” Nobles wrote in a text message following a phone call conversation.
Josh Treviño, a border policy analyst and chief transformation officer at the Texas Public Policy Foundation in Austin, told the Washington Examiner that Republicans are moving fast, literally and symbolically, to put into effect what the public largely demanded in the November election.
“I think there is a real desire on the part of not only the incoming administration but the incoming Congress to actually keep the promises that were made during the campaign and to put the priorities of American citizens first, front and center,” said Treviño.
“Americans deserve what Laken Riley did not get, which is the ability to live in peace and security in their own communities, in their own places, and this is a way to do it,” said Treviño. “Any surprise or incomprehension that this is the first priority of the incoming Congress from any corner is an expression of dissociation from the American people at large.”
Riley, a 22-year-old nursing student in Georgia, was kidnapped, sexually assaulted, and murdered by an illegal immigrant from Venezuela in February 2024, while on a jog.
Jose Ibarra, a Venezuelan migrant arrested in 2022 on charges of illegally crossing the border but was later released into the country, was convicted and sentenced to life in prison in November 2024.
The bill will now be taken up in the Senate. It was one of 12 in a rules package that the GOP is prioritizing in the early days of this Congress. Riley’s parents had endorsed her bill ahead of its passage Tuesday.
“The Laken Riley Act has our full support because it would help save innocent lives and prevent more families from going through the kind of heartbreak we’ve experienced,” her mother, Allyson Phillips, and stepfather, John Phillips, said in a statement shared by Rep. Mike Collins (R-GA). “Laken would have been 23 on January 10th. There is no greater gift that could be given to her and our country than to continue her legacy by saving lives through this bill.”
Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-TX), whose district includes 40% of the 2,000-mile southern border, said the immigration focus of House GOP leadership showed that the GOP understands what the public wants from lawmakers.
“The American people demand a 180-degree clean-up of the mess that President Biden created at the border,” Gonzales told the Washington Examiner in a statement last week. “That’s why Congress is taking immediate action this new session to ramp up deportations, especially for criminal aliens, and improve border security overall. This needs to be priority No. 1, 2, and 3.”
Trump has vowed to end “catch and release,” the term for apprehending and releasing into the country illegal immigrants who enter the country without authorization, and enact a slew of executive orders on his first day in office to tighten the border.
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Democrats opposing the Laken Riley Act said it does little to tackle the broader immigration program which requires comprehensive legislation. Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT), an architect of an unsuccessful bipartisan border security bill that Democrats favored, said the Laken Riley Act is deeply flawed and could spur unproductive lawsuits waged by Republican state attorneys general against the Department of Justice.
The legislation heads to the Senate floor on Friday and would need at least eight Democrats to clear the 60-vote threshold.