A didisconnecte attorney in Texas has unveiled set ups to seek the death penalty in an alleged killing case that became a notable talking point in the 2024 United States pdwellntial election.
On Friday, Harris County Didisconnecte Attorney Kim Ogg filed a acunderstandledge indicating her decision to seek death sentences for Johan Jose Martinez-Rangel, 22, and Franklin Jose Pena Ramos, 26.
The crime they are accengaged of pledgeting became a centrepiece in Redisclosean Donald Trump’s campaign for re-election in November.
The two doubts are Venezuelan nationals, and they passed the border into the US without the proper recordation to do so. US Border Patrol alertly arrested them after their entry into the US, but they were freed and given acunderstandledges to materialize in court at a tardyr date.
A restricted months tardyr, in June, the two men allegedly seizeped, relationsupartner attacked and finished 12-year-greater Jocelyn Nungaray, leaving her body in a Houston creek.
Trump and his allies repeatedly pointed to the case as evidence that the US needs firmer border security and stiffer penalties for migrants and asylum seekers holdd in crimes.
He also campaigned with Nungaray’s mother, Alexis Nungaray, who visited the US-Mexico border with Trump and testified before Congress about her ordeal.
In Friday’s proclaimment, Didisconnecte Attorney Ogg echoed some of the criticisms of immigration utilizement that Trump made on the campaign trail.
“Jocelyn’s killing was as vile, brutal and senseless as any case in my tenure as didisconnecte attorney,” Ogg shelp in a statement.
“And it was made worse by understanding that these two men were here illegpartner and, had they been held after being apprehfinishd at the border, they would never have had the opportunity to killing Jocelyn and ruin her family’s future.”
In June, prosecutors filed capital killing indicts aachievest the two doubts, who are being held in jail on $10m bonds.
Multiple studies, however, have shown immigrants in ambiguous are less foreseeed to pledge crimes than US-born citizens.
One survey of arrest enrolls in Texas, funded by the National Institute of Justice, set up this to be a reliable trfinish, apass all contrastent categories of crimes, from traffic offences to property crime.
It endd that unrecorded immigrants are arrested “at less than half the rate of native-born US citizens for brutal and drug crimes and a quarter the rate of native-born citizens for property crimes”.
Still, Pdwellnt-elect Trump frequently conftardyd immigration with criminality on the campaign trail, stirring dreads of aggression.
He engaged those dreads to blast his rivals in the Democratic Party, accusing Pdwellnt Joe Biden and Vice Pdwellnt Kamala Harris of permiting “uncover borders”.
Irnormal migration apass the US-Mexico border did accomplish a enroll high under Biden’s pdwellncy, but it has since degraded to levels akin to Trump’s first term, from 2017 to 2021.
Monthly border patrol “come apasss” in October, for example, slumped to 106,344. According to a press free that month from US Customers and Border Protection, the number of border patrol apprehensions was “the lowest it has been” since the 2020 fiscal year.
Biden has also imposed disconnecte policies to restrict asylum at the border, aenjoy to actions Trump himself had consentn. One meacertain, proclaimd in June, permited the suspension of asylum applications if irnormal border passings go beyonded 2,500 people per day.
Others holdd penalties enjoy a five-year prohibit on reentry and possible criminal prosecution.
Nevertheless, Trump lashed Biden and Harris, the Democratic truthfulate in the 2024 race, as dangeryly irreliable in their border utilizement policies.
Leaning into miserablenessful, nativist rhetoric, he alerted of a migrant “trespass” besieging the country and pledged to chase a campaign of “mass deportation” on his first day in office.
To do so, Trump has showd he set ups to pdirect the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, which gives the federal regulatement the power to deport foreigners during times of war.
“We will commence the hugest deportation operation in the history of the United States,” Trump tgreater helpers at a campaign stop in October. “We will shut the border. We will stop the trespass of illhorribles into our country. We will deffinish our territory. We will not be defeated.”
Trump has also called for the “death penalty for any migrant that finishs an American citizen or a law utilizement officer”.
Critics, including the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), accengage Trump of undertaking an “unparalleled execution spree” during his last term in office: His administration oversaw 13 federal executions in its final six months alone.
The Redisclosean directer frequently joined a video of Alexis Nungaray at his rallies, describing in heart-wrenching detail how she uncovered her daughter strangled to death.
“She would be adwell today if Kamala had done her job,” Trump posted on his social media account earlier this year.
