Biden campaign says it’s ‘racist’ to suggest migrant crime is rising after the murder of Laken Riley and slams Trump for his ‘poisoning the blood of this country’ claims ahead of president’s Texas border trip

President Joe Biden’s campaign said it was “racist” to suggest migrant crime is on the rise following the killing of Georgian nursing student Laken Riley, and slammed Donald Trump for “poisoning the blood of the country” with his rhetoric.

Illegal Venezuelan immigrant Jose Antonio Ibarra was arrested for the murder of the 22-year-old nursing student. Trump called him a ‘monster’.

The Biden campaign said that despite high-profile cases like Riley’s, the suggestion of a “migrant crime wave” is flawed.

“This immigrant crime story is racist,” Democratic Rep. said. Robert Garcia of California Wednesday during a news conference hosted by Biden’s re-election campaign. ‘It’s not true. Donald Trump is here saying we’re poisoning the blood of this country, and the facts don’t actually support that.”

‘Immigrants generally commit less crime. So when this story comes out, it’s just a false story,” he added.

A recent Pew poll found that 57% of Americans say the large number of migrants wanting to enter the country is leading to more crime.

Charis Kubrin, the co-author of Immigration and Crime: Taking Stock, told CNN that the statistics simply don’t add up when it comes to linking more immigration to higher crime rates.

“The most common finding across all these different types of studies is that immigration to an area is either not associated with crime in that area or negatively associated with crime in that area,” he said.

‘This means that more immigration equals less crime. It is rare to find studies showing crime as a result of an increase in immigration or a greater percentage of the population being immigrants.”

The Biden campaign defended migrants ahead of Biden’s second trip to the border on Thursday.

Biden will travel to Brownsville, Texas, on the same day Donald Trump will be in Eagle Pass, Texas. The cities are about 300 miles apart and the two men are not expected to communicate.

Both Joe Biden (left) and Donald Trump (right) will be at the Texas border on Thursday: Biden in Brownsville, Texas, and Trump in Eagle Pass, Texas

While there, Biden “will meet with U.S. Border Patrol agents, law enforcement, frontline personnel and local leaders to discuss the urgent need to pass the Senate’s bipartisan border security treaty,” a White House official said.

The President will be accompanied by Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas, Representative Vincente Gonzalez, local elected officials, as well as personnel from Customs and Border Protection (CBP), Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). ).

Biden will be briefed on border security operations and then he will make public comments on the need for Republicans in the House of Representatives to pass a bipartisan border package already approved by the Senate. Conservatives argue that the legislation is not strong enough to combat illegal immigration.

The bill included more than $20 billion for border security, which would add new Customs and Border Patrol agents, add more asylum officers to lengthen process times, and add more immigration judges.

Democrats accuse the Republican Party of electoral politics. Trump, who is likely Biden’s rival in the 2024 presidential election, has spoken out against the legislation.

The former president, while in Eagle Pass, wiI will condemn Biden on the record number of illegal crossings and the murder of Riley, the latter high-profile case involving a migrant.

Riley, a nursing student, was found dead by police last Thursday after failing to return from her morning jog. University of Georgia police found her near where she had been jogging through the campus intramural fields with “visible injuries.”

‘Crooked Joe Biden’s Border INVASION is destroying our country and killing our citizens! The horrible murder of 22 year old Laken Riley at the University of Georgia should NEVER have happened! The monster who illegally took his own life entered our country in 2022… then was released AGAIN by radical Democrats in New York after injuring a CHILD!!,” Trump wrote on Truth Social on Monday.

“If I am your President, we will immediately close the border, stop the invasion, and on day one we will begin the largest deportation operation of illegal CRIMINALS in American history! May God bless Laken Riley and her family!!! Our prayers are with you!’

Jose Ibarra, 26, was arrested on charges including murder and kidnapping in the death of 22-year-old nursing student Laken Hope Riley in Athens, Georgia

Riley was killed by “blunt force trauma,” police confirmed.

The White House has expressed condolences to her family but indicated that Biden has not contacted them.

“I want to express our deepest condolences to the family and loved ones of Laken Riley,” White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Wednesday.

“Since this is an active case, I will be very careful about discussing that case more specifically,” she added. “I don’t have anything about the president’s speech to the family, but it is heartbreaking. I can’t even imagine what the family is going through.”

Ibarra has been charged with malice murder, murder, aggravated assault, aggravated assault, false imprisonment, kidnapping, obstructing a 911 call, concealing the death of another and failing to appear on a fingerprintable charge .

The 26-year-old crossed the border into El Paso, Texas, in September 2022, but was released from a detention center due to lack of space.

His illegal status prompted Georgia Governor Brian Kemp to publicly accuse the Biden administration of its immigration policies.

Ibarra was arrested in 2022 after illegally entering the U.S. and was “paroled and released for further processing,” according to an ICE statement.

He was also arrested by New York City police last September and charged with “acting in a manner to injure a child under 17 years of age and motorcycle license violation,” but police released him “before an arrestee could be released,” ICE said.

Police said he did not know the victim and that the crime was a “random solo act.”

UGA Police Chief Jeffrey Clark told reporters at a news conference Thursday that officers searched Ibarra’s apartment in Athens and evidence shows he acted alone.

‘He didn’t know her at all. I think this is a crime of opportunity where he saw an individual and bad things happened,” Clark said.

‘The evidence is robust. It is supported by important community input, physical evidence and expert police work. Importantly, we were assisted by video footage from our campus security camera network.”

Trump said in a Truth Social post on Monday that if he were to run for president again, he would “initiate the largest deportation operation of illegal criminals in American history.”

Since Biden came to power in 2021, there have been more than 7.2 million migrants entered the US via the southern border.

That’s more people than the population of 36 states. Arizona, for example, had a population of 7.1 million, according to the 2020 census.

Trump has promised the “largest deportation” of illegal immigrants in American history if he becomes president again in 2024.