Tone-deaf Mayorkas claims ‘only the criminal’ to blame for slaughter of 12-year-old Texas girl, not Biden border policy

Tone-deaf Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on Wednesday shrugged off attempts to blame Biden’s border policy for the horrific slaughter of Americans at the hands of illegal migrants, saying, “The individual who is responsible for a heinous criminal act is the criminal.”

His comment during a press conference from a Border Patrol aircraft hangar in Tucson, Arizona — some 70 miles from the nearest border crossing — came in response to a question about 12-year-old Jocelyn Nungaray , who was brutalized and murdered in Houston, allegedly by two Venezuelan migrants who were released into the US earlier this year.

“We screen and vet individuals when we encounter them,” he said.

Border agents quickly responded with skepticism to Mayorkas’ claims that the DHS was sufficiently vetting anybody crossing the US border, saying his comments Wednesday show he’s living in “fairytale land.”

“I don’t know what Mayorkas is smoking because it needs to be legalized,” one Border Patrol source told The Post.

“If by vetting he means fingerprinting and doing some half-a**ed background check that has access to almost nothing outside of the United States, then yeah it’s a great process.”

He defended the border vetting procedures — even while acknowledging at least eight ISIS-linked suspected terrorists managed to slip through US custody and enter the country.

The Post first reported on the ISIS suspects being arrested after traveling as far as Los Angeles, Philadelphia, and New York.

“We did not have derogatory information when they were first encountered,” Mayorkas said.

“Concerns were raised subsequently, we used our law enforcement authorities to apprehend and detain them and they are in removal proceedings as we speak,” he added — in the first press conference about the border since Senate Democrats blocked an impeachment trial against him , effectively acquitting him of the charges.

Mayorkas’ statement comes the same day that NBC News also reported DHS has identified more than 400 migrants who were brought to the US from Central Asia by an ISIS-affiliated human smuggling network — and that the whereabouts of more than 50 of them are unknown.

Mayorkas deserves the blame for murders, crime by illegal immigrants

Sources said that not only are the background checks limited by many countries’ refusal to provide information on their citizens, the source explained, but agents are rarely given enough time to effectively screen people before they have to let them go – usually within three days.

“We run checks but unless they have an actual database hit or have interactions with law enforcement in the US we really don’t know,” one source said.

An ICE source echoed those concerns, adding that background checks often come back with errors or are totally incomplete.

The source said migrants often have to be released before border agents have time to fully see the checks through.

“Not all checks come back completed, or verified due to potential errors, in time before a subject could be released letting a potential criminal into the country prior to being completely vetted,” the source said.

“Obviously he knows that the vetting isn’t working and the American people know that’s a false statement and that he’s just towing a political line,” said a second ICE source.

Shortcomings like those could be responsible for eight ISIS terror suspects being allowed into the country before being arrested earlier this month.

They were only apprehended thanks to an FBI tipoff, DHS sources previously confirmed to The Post.

They were only apprehended thanks to an FBI tipoff, ICE sources previously confirmed to The Post.

Two had been in the country for months under surveillance by a Joint Terrorism Task Force.

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The ISIS terror suspects crossed the border and were let into the country and were only apprehended thanks to an FBI tipoff, ICE sources previously confirmed to The Post.

Two of the migrants had been in the country for months under surveillance by a Joint Terrorism Task Force.

The migrants hailed from Tajikistan, a central Asian country bordering Afghanistan that’s become a hotbed of extremist activity through ISIS.

In addition to the terror suspects, a string of high-profile crimes against women and girls have been linked to illegal migrants who were released into the US.

The suspects charged with killing Nungaray — who was lured under a bridge in Houston and assaulted for two hours and then had her hands and legs bound before being strangled to death and dumped in a Bayou — were stopped by border patrol officers and released just weeks before the crime.

Johan Jose Martinez-Rangel, 21, entered the US in March and was taken off a GPS monitoring program weeks before Nungaray’s murder after he was not deemed to be a threat, sources said.

Franklin Jose Peña Ramos, 26, entered the country last month and was still being monitored at the time of the crime.

Both men are being held on $10 million bail.

Such assurances meant little to the family of Rachel Morin, the Maryland mom-of-five raped and brutally murdered in August allegedly by 23-year-old Victor Martinez Hernandez, who illegally entered the US in February 2023 just a month after allegedly murdering a woman back home in El Salvador.

“It appears the tragic rape and murder of Rachel Morin wasn’t enough to spur action,” said Morin family attorney Randolph Rice. “Perhaps the danger of terrorists entering our country will finally make our government leaders realize the urgency of this situation and take action to protect American citizens.”

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“What further tragedy needs to happen before our leaders in Washington wake up and say, ‘We have a disastrous problem; let’s shut the southern border down until we figure out a better way to do this?’” he added.

Morin is just one of several American women and girls who have been violently preyed on by predators who recently entered the country illegally.

Barely a week before Mayorkas’ conference, 12-year-old Jocelyn was bound, stripped half naked from the waist down, and strangled to death in Houston on the night of June 16.

The men accused of the brutal crime, 26-year-old Franklin Jose Pena Ramos and 21-year-old Johan Jose Rangel Martinez, both crossed the border in El Paso this spring and were fitted with ankle monitors by immigration officials.

Pena Ramos was still being monitored at the time of Jocelyn’s murder and cut his ankle bracelet two days later, while Rangel Martinez’s was officially removed weeks earlier after he was deemed to not be a threat.

Jocelyn’s family echoed the Morins’ disgust about current border security during an appearance on with Fox News’ Sean Hannity Tuesday night.

“We have to stop burying our kids, this is not right,” grandfather Kelvin Alvarenga said.

“We have to have more reinforcement when it comes to letting people in, this is not okay, it’s not okay,” he added. “It happens all over the country. We need a safer country.”

Days earlier across the country in NYC, a 13-year-old girl was raped in broad daylight in a Queens park allegedly by 25-year-old Ecuadorian migrant Christian Geovanny Inga-Landi, who has been in the country since he crossed at Eagle Pass in 2021.

In February, 22-year-old Georgia nursing student Laken Riley was brutally murdered while going for a run on campus. Venezuelan migrant Jose Antonio Ibarra, 26, was charged with murder and kidnapping in her killing.

After insisting Biden’s border policies were sound, Mayorkas went on to blame congressional gridlock for the nation’s troubles while highlighting a major funding package which failed to pass in May.

“Executive actions are no substitute for congressional action. Only congress and deliver a full and lasting solution,” he said. “Only congress through legislation can fix what everyone agrees is a broke immigration system that was last updated almost 30 years ago. Only congress can give us the resources we need. We have been under resourced for decades.”

Additional reporting by Hannah Fierick

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