Federal immigration officials repeatedly fumbled their efforts to deport a criminal in the country illegally before he committed several murders, a victim’s widow told Congress Wednesday.
“In the 18 months before the senseless murder of my husband, this killer has been in custody on three occasions, yet federal officials failed to detain or deport him,” Julie Nordman of Wentzville, Mo., told the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee in a prepared statement. “Had they just done their jobs and followed the laws, my husband would still be alive, and so would the four other innocent victims [the killer] brutally murdered.”
Nordman’s husband was killed in March of 2016 by a man who had been deported in 2004 following several arrests and a felony conviction, she said. After the man returned to the United States, he was arrested three times in an 18 month period on charges ranging from drunk driving to domestic violence. On two of those occasions, federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials failed to carry out their detention responsibilities, months before the man committed five murders in a two-day period.
“I want to make sure this doesn’t happen to somebody else and I want the laws strengthened or changed,” Nordman told the lawmakers.
In the case Nordman described, some of the mistakes came down to failing to fulfill obligations under current law. Following one of the future murderer’s arrests, a sheriff notified ICE that they had taken the man into custody. “Immigration is required to respond within a four-hour deadline, yet, they failed to do so, and the sheriff was required to release him. He later pleaded guilty to the charge and received a fine,” Nordman said.
Two months later, the man was arrested again. “While at the municipal courthouse, he was fingerprinted and ICE issued a detainer for his immigration violation,” Nordman said. “However, because of their carelessness, ICE mistakenly sent the detainer paperwork to the incorrect location, and it never reached the proper authorities.”
That story frustrated lawmakers, who promised to investigate ICE’s mistakes. “I think it’s unfortunate they’re not here today to apologize to you, at a minimum,” Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., told Nordman.
