Laken Riley was a graduate of the University of Georgia and a nursing student at nearby Augusta University. Last week, the 22-year-old went for a jog. She never returned, her dead body found in a wooded area near a lake.
Riley’s murder has rightly caused outrage across the country. The accused, Jose Antonio Ibarra, is here illegally. He had been arrested in September 2022 for illegally crossing into the United States, only for Border Patrol to release him.
The point here isn’t whether immigrants commit more or less crimes than native-born persons in the U.S. Nor is it whether we should have more or less legal immigration into America. The point is that if the government did its job of immigration enforcement, Riley would be alive. She would be alive because the man accused of killing her would not be anywhere in the U.S., including in Athens, Georgia.
This is the point that hits home to most people observing this tragedy. It is a visceral one for every parent, sibling, and friend who can see in Riley their own loved ones. It puts a new and haunting face to the immigration issue, an issue that now stands at or near the top in importance for voters.
The people have an intuitive sense of justice on the immigration issue. Our founders defended our Constitution as the best available means to obtain the twin goals of “safety” and “happiness” for the people. Safety came first in listing because it was and is foundational to our rights. To be happy, one must first be safe. One cannot readily pursue the good life without securing the safety of one’s person.
The Constitution’s preamble lists two of the document’s goals as seeking to secure safety, namely to “insure domestic Tranquility” and “provide for the common defense.” Border security touches on both, defending against potentially malicious entrants, whether persons or paraphernalia, and furthering domestic peace as a result.
The call to secure the border often has been reduced by critics to racism. But it isn’t the color of a person’s skin at issue here. America still is a nation of immigrants, some here for centuries and some only for months. We rightly pride ourselves on the universality of our principles of equality and liberty. Those principles guarantee not that every single person can be an American but that an American knows no ethnic self-definition but instead one of belief and character.
The real problem is that we know little to nothing about the many persons pouring into the country illegally. A country that doesn’t even know, much less control, who enters it cannot adequately protect its citizens and legal residents. It permits easier influx of drugs that addict and kill, the trafficking of human beings, and even the unseen entry of terrorists. This situation also leaves many otherwise harmless illegal immigrants in the shadows of society and susceptible to others taking advantage of them with no real protection.
The Biden administration has tried to pass the blame on this issue to others, especially Republicans in Congress. Congress could and should do more legislatively on this issue. But whatever failures may justly fall on the legislative branch and its GOP members, the Biden administration has not committed itself to enforcing immigration law nearly to the degree it can and must.
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For too long, the debate surrounding immigration has been about scoring political points. That must stop. For too long, our legislative branch has postured rather than made policy. That must stop. For too long, our president has refused to fully do his job on the border. That, too, must stop.
We need immigration reform and immigration enforcement. These are not abstract points but real needs for the good of real people — people such as Laken Riley.
Adam Carrington is an associate professor of politics at Hillsdale College.
