The federal agency that oversees all immigration applications and citizenship requests announced Wednesday it has no proof Cristhian Behana Rivera, the man suspected of killing University of Iowa student Mollie Tibbetts last month, ever applied to enter the United States and that he was in fact illegally in the country.
“A search of records by USCIS revealed Rivera did not make any DACA requests nor were any grants given. We have found no record in our systems indicating he has any lawful immigration status,” Michael Bars, spokesman for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, said in an email.
Rivera’s lawyer Allan Richards said earlier in the day that his client was working in the state legally and had passed E-Verify, a federal program that verifies job applicants can legally work in the country.
[More: Trump weighs in on Mollie Tibbett’s murder: ‘Should’ve never happened’]
However, permission to work in the country is different than one’s residing in a country.
A person in the U.S. “unlawfully,” as Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen described Rivera’s legal status to reporters Wednesday, would not be eligible to legally work in the country unless he or she was a beneficiary of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, program.
Rivera’s employment may have been the result of his using another person’s identity and social security number when he applied for the job or he may have used fake documents. Iowa police are handling the investigation, including a look into how Rivera was able to pass an E-Verify test.
Rivera, 24, appeared in court Tuesday and was charged with first-degree murder in the death of Tibbetts, a 20-year-old woman who disappeared during a run on July 18.
Her body was found earlier this week in a field just east of her hometown of Brooklyn, Iowa.
Rivera had worked for Yarrabee Farms and is a Mexican citizen.
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