According to a letter, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) asked two Biden Cabinet members to explain how an MS-13 gang member accused of killing an autistic Maryland lady was permitted to enter the country after traveling over the border illegally.
Released From Jail
In letters delivered late on Monday, Jordan requested information regarding an immigrant from El Salvador who federal officials knew was a gang member, but was permitted to reside in the U.S. anyway.
This was after him being released from jail by both the Health and Human Services and Homeland Security Departments.
Kayla Hamilton was sexually assaulted and strangled to death in her new homehttps://t.co/f62QghM9Wl
— ExpressUSNews (@ExpressUSNews) March 1, 2023
The investigation was decided upon in response to requests from the mother of the victim, Tammy Nobles, to shed light on how a convicted felon managed to elude immigration control.
Nobles wants to know how this person ended up on Aberdeen, Maryland’s streets before killing the 20-year-old lady in her bedroom.
In their complaints to the Biden administration, the Republicans referenced the information from the Washington Examiner.
Due to his age, the suspect’s name has not been made public. Federal Border Patrol agents arrested the suspect in Rio Grande City, Texas, in March 2022 and took him into custody.
Per protocol, the suspect was sent to HHS, which Congress has charged with looking after unaccompanied minors and locating sponsors to discharge them within the United States.
He was identified as an MS-13 gang member by Aberdeen police previously this year.
However, it is unknown whether federal authorities were aware of him or whether they ran a background check on him when he crossed the border.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection, which is in charge of the Border Patrol, declined to say whether it had done so in a statement in February. According to Aberdeen police, the suspect claimed a woman in Frederick, Maryland was his aunt when he was in federal custody.
Raped and Murdered
The suspect moved in with Hamilton and her boyfriend’s three-bedroom mobile home before leaving to live with his aunt and renting a room there.
Every American should know the story of Kayla Hamilton, who was raped and murdered by an MS-13 gang member claiming asylum as an unaccompanied minor. pic.twitter.com/Rrh0lMXWzM
— BABS D (@Barbara14130169) February 8, 2023
On July 27, 2022, Hamilton was killed in her bed by being raped and strangled. Her boyfriend discovered her body about a half-day later.
As the suspect forced entry into the bedroom occupied by Hamilton and her boyfriend, she had just arrived home after working a midnight shift at a grocery shop.
Noble claimed although her daughter adored her siblings, she was eager to begin her own life with her partner.
Republicans pressed Becerra to release information from the suspect’s case file from HHS, such as the dates the suspect entered and left DHS custody and details about the agency’s attempts to reunite him with a relative in the country.
GOP members also want to know whether or not HHS tried to verify the suspect’s claim that he was a minor, whether or not it discovered the suspect was a member of the MS-13 gang, and whether or not it confirmed the suspect’s relationship with the woman to whom he was released.
The suspect’s benefits applications, consular file, immigration status, and past immigration history were all requested of Mayorkas. Republicans requested that DHS divulge any knowledge agents had on the suspect at the time of his initial interception.
They gave the secretaries until March 13 to respond, according to Jordan and McClintock.
