Kayla Hamilton’s Mother Fires Back at Democrats Over Immigration Bill Named for Murdered Daughter

The facts here are straightforward, and they are damning. The House of Representatives passed the Kayla Hamilton Act on Tuesday by a vote of 225 to 201, legislation designed to prevent exactly the kind of preventable tragedy that cost 20-year-old Kayla Hamilton her life. The bill requires federal authorities to assess whether unaccompanied migrant minors pose safety risks before placement in American communities. This should not be controversial. It is common sense.

What happened to Kayla Hamilton represents a catastrophic failure of the Biden administration’s immigration policies. In 2022, Hamilton was raped, tied up, assaulted, and strangled to death by Walter Javier Martinez, a 17-year-old illegal migrant and alleged MS-13 gang member who entered the country as an unaccompanied minor. Martinez was sentenced to 70 years in prison this past April. This was entirely preventable.

According to Kayla’s mother, Tammy Nobles, a single phone call to El Salvador would have revealed Martinez’s MS-13 affiliation and criminal record of gang activity. One phone call. The Department of Homeland Security and Department of Health and Human Services failed to make that call. The result was the brutal murder of an innocent young woman.

Now, in the aftermath of the House passing legislation in her daughter’s name, Nobles finds herself defending her grief against Democrat Representative Jasmine Crockett, who referred to Kayla as a “random dead person” during debate over the bill. Let that sink in. A grieving mother fought for legislation to prevent other families from experiencing her nightmare, and a sitting member of Congress dismissed her daughter as random.

“I’m so over the Democrat officials stating that the Republican Party is using Kayla’s story as a political stunt,” Nobles said. “Everything regarding Kayla and the Kayla Hamilton Act was what her mom wanted. I made it very clear in the beginning that I wanted a law in her name.”

This is not a political stunt. This is a mother seeking justice and attempting to ensure that her daughter’s death was not in vain. The legislation, introduced by Representative Russell Fry of South Carolina, mandates that the Secretary of Health and Human Services consider whether unaccompanied alien children pose threats to themselves or their communities before placement. Again, this is basic due diligence that should have been standard operating procedure all along.

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard has indicated that intelligence shows thousands of illegal migrants with potential ties to terrorism entered the United States under the Biden administration. This compounds the security failures that led to Kayla Hamilton’s death. When the federal government refuses to conduct basic background checks on individuals entering the country illegally, Americans die. This is not fearmongering. This is documented fact.

The Biden administration’s lax immigration policies created the conditions that allowed a known gang member to enter the country and murder Kayla Hamilton. Democrats in the House voted 201 to oppose legislation that would prevent similar tragedies. They then had the audacity to accuse Republicans of politicizing the issue while simultaneously dismissing the victim as a “random dead person.”

Tammy Nobles wanted a law in her daughter’s name. She deserves that much. More importantly, American communities deserve the protection that comes from proper vetting of individuals entering this country. The Kayla Hamilton Act represents a small step toward restoring sanity to our immigration system. It should have been unanimous.

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