(NewsNation) — The mother of a woman who was raped and killed while hiking on a suburban Baltimore trail told lawmakers the suspect would have never been allowed in the U.S. if the Border Patrol had followed its own protocols.
Patty Morin delivered a powerful statement to members of the House Committee on Homeland Security.
“If they had done the border protocols that were in place but was set aside, just a simple DNA swab, they would know that he had a INTERPOL warrant for murder in his home country, and that’s why he was fleeing (to) the United States. They say that the borders are safe. We live 1,800 miles away from the southern border. They’re not safe,” she said.
Rachel Morin’s body was found in Bel Air, Maryland, on August 6, 2023, and a suspect was arrested in Oklahoma ten months later. Victor Martinez-Hernandez, 23, of El Salvador, was in the U.S. illegally. He faces first-degree murder, first-degree rape and kidnapping charges.
Homeland Security Chairman Mark Green, R-Tenn., called the “flood of inadmissible aliens across our sovereign borders … unprecedented” in his opening remarks.
Green also cited statistics first reported by NewsNation’s Ali Bradley on Tuesday.
“Just yesterday, prominent border correspondent Ali Bradley reported exclusive ICE figures showing since Biden-Harris ended Title 42 in May (2023), the administration has only removed around 23% of all inadmissible alien encounters,” Green said in his opening remarks.
In his remarks, Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., defended the Biden administration with some additional statistics.
“Border encounters are at their lowest levels in years. Since (the Biden) proclamation on June 4th, encounters along the border have decreased by 55%,” Thompson said.
“The administration has also removed more than 92,000 individuals to more than 130 countries and conducted over 300 international repatriation flights. Total removal and returns over the last year exceed total removal and return in any year since 2010,” he added.