The Democratic sheriff of the Georgia county, where a 22-year-old nursing student named Laken Riley was murdered by an alleged illegal alien last week, had campaigned on a platform of not cooperating with federal immigration authorities.
Jose Antonio Ibarra, a 26-year-old Venezuelan, was taken into custody on Friday in connection with the death of Riley, who suffered fatal head injuries during a brutal assault on February 22. Her remains were found in a nearby forest.
According to sources from the Department of Homeland Security who spoke with NewsNation reporter Ali Bradley, Ibarra entered the United States through El Paso, Texas in September 2022 and was subsequently released due to insufficient detention space.
Athens-Clarke County Sheriff John Williams made a campaign promise in 2020 not to work with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials, potentially endangering his community.
“It is not my intention to cooperate with detainers. I see it as the sheriff’s responsibility to protect the community. We can’t help with a culture of fear in our community and expect our community to respond and help us in situations.” Williams said to a reporter.
4/ Meanwhile, Athens Sheriff John Williams campaigned on REFUSING to cooperate with ICE detainers.
“We won’t be contributing to that culture of fear,” he promised in 2020: pic.twitter.com/enuEy6a7gp
— Kelly Loeffler (@KLoeffler) February 28, 2024
“Building relationships is key and if we’re antagonizing people because they are undocumented, then they built that fear in them, and they’re not likely to come to us. Not only when we need their help, but when they need our help. So that’s not something that we’d be doing. We won’t be doing any types of round-ups, and we won’t be contributing to that culture of fear.” he went on.
[READ MORE: Trump Attacks Biden Over Border Crisis]
