Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene’s (R-GA) crusade to politicize the murder of Laken Riley took an absurdist turn on Tuesday when the politician said the young American student would’ve been better off being deported.
Greene directed the strange comment to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, who was appearing before the House Homeland Security Committee on Tuesday to testify on the budget.
Greene used the opportunity to speak about what she called the “open border” which she said was allowing undocumented immigrants into the country. She tried to connect her argument to Laken Riley, the 22-year-old nursing student who police suspect was killed by an undocumented immigrant while out jogging, but even she couldn’t keep her hateful tirade straight.
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“You should have deported her so she could be alive today,” Greene said. “Her parents would’ve appreciated that.”
Last month Riley’s father said he was angered that Greene, and other GOP members, had used his daughter’s death for their own political ends.
“I’d rather her not be such a political, how you say—it started a storm in our country,” Jason Riley told the Today show about his daughter’s death, “and it’s incited a lot of people.”
“I think it’s being used politically to get those votes,” he said. “It makes me angry. I feel like, you know, they’re just using my daughter’s name for that. And she was much better than that, and she should be raised up for the person that she is. She was an angel.”
On the day of Joe Biden’s State of the Union address an immigration bill passed the GOP-led House with 37 Democrats supporting it. If it is signed into law, the Laken Riley Act would require U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to take into custody undocumented immigrants who commit theft-related crimes.
“Are you familiar with Laken Riley?” was the only question the GOP congresswoman had about the Biden administration’s budget requests, the rest was finger-wagging toward an official she’d already voted to impeach.
On Tuesday afternoon, House GOP members plan to deliver articles of impeachment for Mayorkas to the Senate, ahead of what is expected to be a brief trial beginning on Wednesday.
