A Texas mother whose 12-year-old daughter was savagely strangled to death, allegedly by two illegal immigrants from Venezuela, retold the heartbreaking story to members of the House Judiciary Committee Tuesday, telling lawmakers that the Harris-Biden administration was “responsible” for the killing.
Fighting back tears, Alexis Nungaray recounted learning how her daughter, Jocelyn, was assaulted, murdered and then dumped in a bayou outside of Houston.
“She was strangled to death. She had no clothing from the waist down. Her hands and her ankles were tied and thrown under the bridge of water like she was nothing but garbage,” Nungaray recalled.
The two suspects — 26-year-old Franklin Jose Pena Ramos and 21-year-old Johan Jose Rangel Martinez — allegedly bound Jocelyn’s hands before carrying out the atrocities and her body was later found covered in cuts and gashes.
Nungaray explained that she woke up on June 17 and felt terrified realizing that her daughter had snuck out of the family house and was missing. After “frantically” searching the area, she learned that her daughter’s cellphone was about two minutes away.
Eventually, authorities informed her they believed her daughter was murdered.
Officials say both suspects illegally entered the US earlier this year and were released into the country. Pena Ramos had claimed he feared for his safety if he was sent back to Venezuela, while Rangel Martinez was fitted with an ankle monitor but had it removed after it was determined he had no known criminal history.
“Because of the Biden-Harris administration open border policies, catch and release, they were enrolled in the Alternatives to Detention program,” Nungaray explained of her daughter’s suspected killers. “This meant that they were released into the United States.
“It was not even a full three weeks later that they would take my daughter, Jocelyn Nungaray’s life.”
Video had captured Jocelyn and the two men walking not far from a bridge over the bayou. Later the two men were seen leaving the area by themselves.
“They were down there for two whole hours,” Nungaray said Tuesday. “I can’t even fathom what was going through Jocelyn’s mind — the amount of fear she was feeling in the last moments of her life.”
“Individuals like that do not have heart,” she added. “They are nothing but monsters who are predators and those are the kind of individuals that we so openly let into this country.”
Alexis Nungaray met with former President Donald Trump last month during an event near the US-Mexico border just as the Democratic National Convention was wrapping up.