On the three-year anniversary of Sarah’s death, Senator Joni Ernst spoke on the Senate floor about the preventable loss, as well as a reintroduction of Sarah’s [...]]]>
On the three-year anniversary of Sarah’s death, Senator Joni Ernst spoke on the Senate floor about the preventable loss, as well as a reintroduction of Sarah’s Law, proposed legislation that would prohibit federal immigration officials from releasing any illegal alien who has committed a violent crime against an American citizen
]]>On Third Anniversary of Her Death, Senator Ernst Re-Introduces Sarah’s Law, Senator Ernst Press Release, Jan 31 2019
Ernst: “We have an obligation to the Root family, and to the American people, to ensure that no person falls victim to this injustice again”
WASHINGTON – On January 31, 2016, the night of her graduation, Sarah Root, a twenty-one year-old Iowan from Council Bluffs, was struck and killed in Omaha, Neb., by Edwin Mejia, who entered the country illegally and was driving drunk – three times over the legal limit.
Today, on the third anniversary of her death, Senator Joni Ernst (R-IA), along with Senators Chuck Grassley (R-IA), Ben Sasse (R-NE), Deb Fischer (R-NE) and 11 of their colleagues, re-introduced legislation in honor of Sarah, to allow federal law enforcement to detain illegal immigrants criminally charged with killing or seriously injuring another person.
“It is wholly unacceptable that someone who is here illegally and is responsible for the death of another human being is not considered an enforcement priority nor is detained by ICE. We have an obligation to the Root family, and to the American people, to ensure that no person falls victim to this injustice again. Sarah’s Law brings us one step closer to restoring justice in our broken immigration system by allowing ICE to detain and hold these criminals accountable,” said Senator Joni Ernst (R-IA).
“The tragic death of Sarah Root three years ago and the ongoing search for her killer underscore the serious attention border security and immigration enforcement require in America. Sarah’s life was cut short by an undocumented immigrant who disregarded the rule of law and decided to get behind the wheel after drinking. The Obama Administration refused to take custody of Sarah’s killer because it didn’t consider him a priority, allowing him to disappear into the shadows. The Roots have been robbed of their daughter, and at least for now, they have been robbed of justice. Our legislation, named in Sarah’s memory, will ensure that those who harm or kill Americans will be taken into custody and removed while also ensuring that victims and their families get the information they deserve from the government as they pursue justice,” said Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA).
“Edwin Mejia’s mugshot shouldn’t be on a most wanted poster — Edwin Mejia should be in jail, serving hard time for the life he took and the pain he left behind,” said Senator Ben Sasse (R-NE). “Sarah’s Law is common-sense legislation that Sarah and her family deserve to have signed into law. Congress should waste no time sending this legislation to the President’s desk for his signature.” . . .
After the arrest of Cristhian Rivera, the accused killer of Mollie Tibbetts, there was quite a bit of consternation that the illegal alien had gamed the immigration system, somehow fooling the E-verify program that indicates whether a foreigner is here legally and eligible to work. A typical reaction on the subject appeared in the San Jose Mercury: Arrest in Mollie Tibbetts murder raises questions about E-verify program.
E-verify was supposed to be dependable and a vital enforcement tool — what happened?
But it turns out the identification check done on the farm where Rivera worked did not use E-verify as had been claimed, but instead utilized the Social Security system, as reported by the Associated Press:
Dane Lang, manager of Yarrabee Farms in Brooklyn, Iowa, said that Cristhian Bahena Rivera presented an out-of-state government-issued photo identification and a matching social security card when he was hired in 2014. Lang says, “our employee is not who he said he was.”
Lang said the farm ran the information through the Social Security Administration’s employment verification system and it checked out. He said the farm didn’t use the E-Verify system as it asserted in a statement Tuesday night, saying an employee was mistaken.
Social Security cards were never designed to be used for identification, so the explanation sounds suspect. Perhaps it’s a kind of E-verify-Lite convenient for Iowa farmers who hire a lot of sketchy foreigners.
E-verify uses national databases the check the identity of the person being investigated, as shown by the USCIS information video below:
Here’s an article with more details about how the Mexican Cristhian Rivera got to stay in Iowa and murder:
]]>Farm that hired Cristhian Rivera, Mollie Tibbetts’ suspected killer, did not use E-Verify system, official says, Fox News, August 22, 2018
The Mexican national accused of murdering college student Mollie Tibbetts in Iowa last month livd in the United States illegally for several years — and worked for a farm that used Social Security Administration data in part to vet potential employees, according to officials there.
However, Yarrabee Farms co-owner and manager Dane Lang clarified Tuesday afternoon that the farm did not use a federal E-Verify check on suspect Cristhian Rivera, despite the company’s claim earlier in the day that it did.
Lang said Rivera provided a state-issued photo identification and social security card. “We learned that our employee was not who he said he is.”
Rivera, 24, was arrested and charged with first-degree murder Tuesday after the body of Tibbetts, a 20-year-old University of Iowa student, was discovered in a cornfield about 12 miles southeast of Brooklyn, where she was last seen running. Police said Rivera was in the country illegally and an immigration detainer was placed on him after his arrest.
[. . .]
Identity fraud is the most common way illegal immigrants and “unscrupulous employers” try to thwart the system, said Jessica Vaughan, the director of policy studies for the Center for Immigration Studies.
While the details regarding how Rivera may have gamed the system remain unclear, Vaughan said many of the cases prosecuted in the past have seen an illegal immigrant simply purchase fraudulent identities.
“There have been cases of inmates selling their identities because they are incarcerated and don’t need them,” she said.
In one Massachusetts case, a hiring manager actually had an agreement with an identity vendor across the street who would help any illegal immigrant receive an identity that would pass muster, Vaughan said.
“They would send them across the street and tell them to come back later,” she said.
Below, Mexican illegal Cristhian Rivera [...]]]>
Below, Mexican illegal Cristhian Rivera is under arrest for the murder of college student Mollie Tibbetts.
I’ve been followed while on foot by strange men in cars, and it is unnerving — they can run you down if they want.
Every crime committed by an illegal alien is a preventable one; the fact that so many Americans have been killed by foreigners who shouldn’t be here shows how little elites and the political class care about public safety. Now Mollie’s family must join a tragic group of parents and relatives who have lost loved ones to illegal alien crime — like the parents who spoke at Donald Trump’s nominating convention.
Agnes Gibboney, who lost her son to illegal alien crime, said Mollie’s murder by an illegal alien was “unacceptable.”
“This is an outrage, a preventable crime that should’ve never happened.”
Agnes Gibboney, whose son was killed by an illegal immigrant, comments on the death of Mollie Tibbetts. @foxnewsnight https://t.co/Oz0U9BxZiB pic.twitter.com/aUI23HLmEO
— Fox News (@FoxNews) August 22, 2018
It looks like local police did good investigative work to find the killer. Unfortunately, Iowa does not have the death penalty. Killer Cristhian Rivera claims he “blacked out” at the moment of the actual murder, so the insanity defense is likely. He will probably be portrayed as the victim, as happened to a degree with the killer of Kate Steinle.
Another important question is the employment of Rivera — which curiously is unspecified now — where was he working? If America had universal E-verify to weed out illegal alien workers, their numbers would drop like a rock, since American jobs are the only reason the invaders are here.
]]>Illegal immigrant charged with Mollie Tibbetts’ murder, New York Post, August 21, 2018
An “illegal alien” is in custody for the murder of Iowa college student Mollie Tibbetts, according to police officials.
Cristhian Rivera, 24, was charged Tuesday in Poweshiek County after being brought in without incident by local cops.
Investigators spoke to him at length about what happened on July 18 — when he allegedly abducted Tibbetts — and revealed what he said during an afternoon press conference.
According to officials, Rivera told cops that he saw the young woman running, circled around a few times in his car, and eventually approached her.
He got out an ran up behind Tibbetts and accidentally spooked her — causing the 20-year-old to panic, officials said.
Rivera told cops that he then blacked out, and didn’t come to again until after Tibbetts was already dead — at the intersection in rural Poweshiek County where investigators found her body.
Cops would not say when the young college student was left there.
Rick Rahn, special agent in charge at the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation, told reporters that federal officials were able to confirm Rivera’s status as an illegal immigrant after he was brought into custody on Monday.
“He’s an illegal alien, been in this area for four to seven years,” Rahn said.
Investigators were able to link Rivera to the missing person case after catching his black Chevy Malibu on surveillance camera the day Tibbetts disappeared. He was allegedly tailing her as she ran.
“He followed her around,” Rahn said. “Circled around a couple times, located her, then began to interface with her.” (Continues)
But now the illegals are being forced to go home, to places like Mexico — hardly a poor backwater with its #15 world GDP rank. As a rule, the mainstream press hatefully regards America as being evil racist capitalist, except where illegal immigrants are concerned, and then the United States becomes the idealized land of dreams.
Today’s tale of trauma appears on the front page of the New York Times showing an illegal mom who will take her son to reunite the family with her deported husband. It’s nice to actually see some of the mythical Mexican family values about which we’ve heard for so long.
It might work out well for Mexico in the long run to have citizens who expect more out of government and society than to be loaded with crime and corruption from top to bottom. Deportee demands for social and economic reform might start something worthwhile — if they decide to bother. We’ll see. The United States cannot be the spare country for billions of dissatisfied people on the planet.
The article is reprinted in the Santa Fe New Mexican where there is no annoying paywall, so click away for additional sappy sentimentality about lawbreaking, job-stealing, resource-looting illegal aliens:
]]>Stay, hide or leave? Hard choices for immigrants in the heartland, By Jack Healy, Santa Fe New Mexican via New York Times, August 12, 2017
HAMPTON, Iowa — It was quitting time. Edith Rivera took one last lunch order, dropped off a basket of tortilla chips and set off from work, heading out to the farm roads where other immigrants feared to drive.
Like them, Rivera, 33, had no legal status in the country where she had lived for 18 years. She had no driver’s license, apart from the long-expired North Carolina identification she held safe, like a talisman, in her wallet.
But as she skimmed past the northern Iowa cornfields on her way to her son Steven’s seventh-grade track meet, she did not share other immigrants’ fears. Not of being pulled over. Not of raids or deportation. Not of the man in the White House. Not of the new Franklin County sheriff’s quest to make sure this rapidly diversifying community of hog barns and egg farms would never again be known as an immigrant sanctuary.
Her American journey was waning, and she had little left to lose.
Her husband, Jesús Canseco-Rodriguez, was already gone — deported to Mexico in 2015. Rivera had jettisoned their apartment and sold off what the family had built in Hampton: their small business power-washing hog barns, Canseco’s work truck, their furniture.
Now, at this tense juncture for immigrants and their adoptive hometowns across the conservative swaths of rural America, Rivera planned to sever one last tie. She was returning to Mexico — and to her husband — with Steven, 13 years old and American-born.
Some politicians call it “self-deportation.” She called it her family’s only hope of being together.