The grieving mother of murdered Maryland mother Rachel Morin warns that nowhere in the country is safe for illegal immigrants.
Patty Morin, 64, delivered heartbreaking testimony in Congress on Wednesday during a hearing titled “A Country Without Borders: How Biden and Harris’ Open Borders Policies Have Undermined Our Safety and Security.”
Rachel, a 37-year-old mother of five, was raped and murdered on a Maryland hiking trail in August 2023.
Suspect Victor Martinez Hernandez, 23, was arrested nearly a year ago in Oklahoma. He is wanted for murder in his native El Salvador, police said.
“If they had followed the border protocols that were already in place but have now been overridden, and just taken a DNA sample, they would have known that he had an INTERPOL warrant for murder in his home country,” Morin told the House Homeland Security Committee.
“They say the borders are secure. We live 1,800 miles from the southern border. They are not secure.”
Patty Morin, 64, shared heartbreaking testimony in Congress on Wednesday during a hearing titled ‘A Country Without Borders: How Biden and Harris’ Open Borders Policies Have Undermined Our Safety and Security’
Rachel Morin, 37, was allegedly raped and murdered in August 2023 by Victor Martinez Hernandez, 23, after Hernandez was allowed into the country despite his criminal record.
Morin has become an outspoken critic of Biden after her daughter’s murder. Last week, she sat on another congressional committee along with the families of other undocumented immigrant victims.
She also said Wednesday that neither Biden nor Harris have contacted her to offer their condolences for Rachel’s murder.
“Since my daughter’s death, but also since we learned it was an illegal immigrant who was accused of killing her, the Biden-Harris administration has not reached out to our family to offer their condolences,” Morin said.
Speaking to the House Judiciary Committee last week, Morin said her daughter’s death was due to the decisions made by Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, saying it was “100 percent preventable.”
“The American people need to hear, know and understand the truth about the horrific war zone we call the southern border,” Morin said, imploring the American people to heed her call for greater security.
‘President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris’ open border policies are having a devastating impact on our great country.
‘I live 1,800 miles from the southern border, in a small town in northern Maryland. Yet a man wanted for murder in El Salvador came to my community and robbed my daughter on a scenic hiking trail in the middle of the day.
‘[But] “They just turned him around and made him come back over and over again until he finally got across the border,” she said of Hernandez, seen here in a photo on social media. He is accused of killing another woman in El Salvador and attacking a nine-year-old girl in LA
“I am here today to make sure my daughter is not remembered just as a victim,” she continued.
“I hope her story serves as a warning that this country must secure its borders and protect American citizens.”
The case surrounding Rachel’s death remained a mystery for months after the mother was reported missing after she failed to return home from a run.
Hernandez had already illegally crossed the southern border several months earlier, in February 2023, after allegedly killing a woman in El Salvador the month before.
He is also accused of attacking a nine-year-old girl and her mother in Los Angeles in the weeks before Rachel’s murder.
“The circumstances surrounding Rachel’s death have only added to our grief,” said Morin, who responded when Tulsa police arrested the alleged killer in June after a lengthy manhunt.
“We felt relief when the suspect was finally caught,” she added. “But that relief quickly turned to horror and outrage when we learned the suspect was an illegal immigrant.
“This man was wanted because he killed a woman in his home country when he walked into our country,” she continued.
Morin was one of eight people invited to speak at last week’s hearing to share their perspectives on the negative impacts of border management over the past 44 months, from drug and human trafficking to violent crime miles from the border crossing.
Two other mothers whose daughters are believed to have been murdered by illegal immigrants also spoke out, as did the mother of a fentanyl poisoning victim, a crime victims’ advocate and a California sheriff.