Lawmakers investigating whether border crisis kids committed murder

Jose Vasquez Ardon and Cristian Nunez-Flores were arrested in Massachusetts after a surveillance video showed them walking down a trail with another teenager and then returning without him. The missing teen was later found dead from a gunshot wound to the head.

“If these suspects were in fact unaccompanied alien minors, this would be yet another example of the administration wantonly creating a public safety threat by releasing minors that were members of one of the nation’s most violent Central American gangs into the community,” Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., and Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, wrote in a Tuesday letter. “Such reckless behavior has already resulted in multiple homicides and other crimes of violence by these criminal street gangs and put the public into serious danger.”

Local press reports suggest the two teenagers are tied to MS-13, an international gang that has been “targeting younger recruits” for years, according to the FBI. Grassley and Goodlatte, who chair the House and Senate Judiciary Committees, inquired about the case as part of their ongoing probe of whether President Obama’s immigration policies are allowing criminals to operate in the country.

“When did each alien enter? How were their respective statuses as unaccompanied minors determined?” they asked in a series of questions to Health and Human Secretary Sylvia Burwell and Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson. “To whom was each alien released, and were those sponsors interviewed by officials with the Department of Homeland Security or Department of Health and Human Services or contractors with those Departments?”

The lawmakers noted “reports that criminal networks based in Central America are using lax border enforcement and recent surges of unaccompanied minors crossing the Southern border to establish and broaden operations in the United States.”