Chairman Goodlatte Asks How Many Americans Must Die Before President Obama Will Enforce the Law Against Those Unlawful Aliens Who Commit Crimes in the U.S.

Press Release

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) today condemned the Obama Administration's lack of enforcement of immigration laws afterreports of Victor Aureliano Martinez Ramirez, an unlawful immigrant, allegedly raped, tortured and murdered 64 year old Marilyn Pharis in Santa Maria, California in late July.

According to news articles, Martinez has been in the United States illegally since at least 2009, and has avoided deportation because of local, state and federal policies that provide sanctuary to unlawful and even criminal immigrants. After a 2014 arrest for battery and possession of methamphetamine, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) lodged a detainer against Ramirez. But the Santa Barbara County Sheriff's office refused to honor the detainer. According to the Santa Maria Police Chief, Ramirez has been arrested six times in just the last 15 months, most recently a mere eight days before Pharis' murder. But because the Obama Administration's removal priorities changed in late 2014, and ICE determined that Ramirez's "case history showed he had no prior deportations or felony criminal convictions," he was not deemed an enforcement priority under the changed removal priorities and ICE refused, this time, to lodge a detainer. Ramirez was simply released onto the streets of Santa Maria, free to murder Marilyn Pharis. Chairman Goodlatte released the following statement on the murder and the dangerous lack of commitment to immigration enforcement by local, state and federal agencies:

"The Obama Administration's callous disregard for our nation's immigration laws has spiraled into public safety crisis that has manifested itself in the heinous murder of another innocent woman, this time a veteran of the United States Air Force.

"The Obama Administration should be leading the way in immigration enforcement so states and localities can no longer ignore federal law and enact dangerous sanctuary policies. Instead, this Administration's misguided policy that only certain criminal convictions should render an unlawful immigrant a "priority" for removal -- leads to countless crimes inflicted on Americans and legal immigrants. How many Americans must die at the hands of unlawful criminal immigrants before the Obama Administration takes a serious look at the failure of its own policies?"

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