EL PASO, Texas (Border Report) – On the one hand, there was the mother whose 20-year-old child was raped and murdered by an MS-13 gang member whom the U.S. government allowed into the country as an unaccompanied alien child (UAC).
On the other hand, there was the former Marine whose hard-working, 48-year-old father allegedly was kicked by masked immigration officers and held for 24 days in unsanitary conditions in a California federal detention facility.
Their testimony in a Senate Judiciary subcommittee hearing on Tuesday illustrated not only how there are two sides to the illegal immigration debate raging across the country, but also how changes in federal policy can deeply and suddenly affect families in any American community.
“There are no words to describe the gut-wrenching, soul-crushing pain of losing your child so horrifically,” said Tammy Nobles, mother of Kayla Hamilton. “Kayla was a loving and happy person. She loved life and God. She loved hearing about Jesus and the Bible stories.”
Hamilton’s killer, a teenager who allegedly fled El Salvador to avoid retribution after the murder of gang rivals, was recently convicted to 70 years in prison. Her death led to the filing of the Kayla Hamilton Act mandating Health and Human Services to properly vet, including in their home countries, migrant children older than 12.
Bill sponsors blame the Biden administration’s unprecedented openness to asylum claims for the tragedy.
Senate subcommittee on Border Security and Immigration chair U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, said cases like that of Hamilton illustrate how Biden’s “open borders” policy allowed criminal migrants to inflict harm on Americans.
“The first false narrative I want to address is that illegal aliens are not criminals but law abiding individuals. The moment an illegal alien enters the United States they have committed a crime. A crime under U.S. law to enter the United States illegally,” Cornyn said at the hearing.
While his logic was later challenged by subcommittee ranking member U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla, D-California, Cornyn espoused that it’s unreasonable for migrants and unauthorized immigrants to expect to be treated like Americans.
“Another false narrative peddled by the far left is that illegal aliens are not receiving due process when they are arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The idea that someone could break our laws, enter our country illegally and then be entitled to all the rights and privileges of an American citizens is a little far-fetched,” the senator from Texas said. “While the Fifth Amendment applies to all individuals within the United States, illegal aliens are not entitled to the same level of due process as American citizens.”
Are all immigrants criminals?
But closing the border to asylum-seekers and now targeting undocumented immigrants in the interior of the country has also taken an emotional toll and allegedly led to human rights abuses.
Alejandro Barranco testified before the subcommittee how his landscaper father was taken into federal custody by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents last June.
“My father was violently attacked and detained in Santa Ana, California, while working a job he has held since the 1990s. He was surrounded by masked men who did not identify themselves and never presented any type of warrant,” Barranco said.
He added his father, Narciso, got scared and ran. His pursuers pointed a gun at him, pepper-sprayed him and tackled him to the ground and kicked him. “After he was handcuffed, these men held him down while another beat him repeatedly in the neck and head area. They threw him in the back of an unmarked vehicle,” Barranco said.
He said his father was proud when he learned that his son – and eventually all three of his sons – joined the Marine Corps. He described him as a law-abiding individual and said he should not have been “attacked” by ICE agents.
Narciso Barranco’s case has become a banner for activists who question why the Trump administration is targeting non-violent immigrants for deportation.
Ranking member Padilla expressed opposition to the administration’s growing workplace ICE raids and said Trump broke his word to the American people to prioritize the removal of violent and criminal immigrants.
He showed a chart he said proves only 10 percent of those arrested by ICE have a criminal record. He also challenged the witnesses to tell him if they thought all undocumented immigrants were criminals, as his Republican colleague appear to be saying.
As in the rest of the country, the question only provoked more debate.
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