Suspect in campus slaying ordered held without bail
A 26-year-old man charged with kidnapping and murdering a nursing student at the University of Georgia in Athens will remain in jail after he was denied bond at a hearing Saturday, authorities said.
The suspect, Jose Antonio Ibarra, lived in an apartment complex about 1 mile from a wooded trail where the body of Laken Riley, 22, was found Thursday afternoon, said Jeffrey Clark, the chief of university police. Riley, a student at nearby Augusta University and a former student at the University of Georgia, had been reported missing by friends after she did not return from a run.
Ibarra, a resident of Athens
who is not a U.S. citizen, migrated to the United States from Venezuela, authorities said.
He was arrested by the Border Patrol for crossing the border illegally in September 2022 and was released quickly with temporary permission to stay in the country, a federal law enforcement official said Saturday. That release, or parole, was a practice the administration used when officials were overwhelmed with high numbers of crossings. The administration ended that practice about six months later.
It was typical for many Venezuelans to be released with permission to stay temporarily because they could not be repatriated back to their country due to strained diplomatic relations. Some 6 million Venezuelans have fled their troubled country, the largest population displacement in Latin America's modern history.
On Saturday, it was not clear what Ibarra's immigration status was.
Many conservative politicians, including Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia, on Saturday linked the killing to the immigration policies of President Joe Biden, which they contend have overwhelmed the country with more migrants than the system can handle. M
“House Republicans will continue to fight tooth and nail for a return to law and order,” Johnson said in a post on X, formerly Twitter.
On Friday, the Justice Department said that Ibarra had a brother, Diego Ibarra, 29, who was also from Venezuela and who had been charged with possessing a fake green card.