Grieving family members offered emotional testimony April 16 about losing children or caring for critically injured loved ones after incidents involving illegal immigrants, as House Republicans used the stories to sharply condemn sanctuary policies that they said shield criminal offenders from deportation.
The House Judiciary Subcommittee on Oversight hearing, titled “The Human Toll of Sanctuary Policies: Stories from Victims and Families,” centered on personal accounts from parents who described preventable tragedies enabled by jurisdictions that limit cooperation with federal immigration authorities.
“These are real people and they’re real tragedies,” Rep. Jeff Van Drew, R-N.J., said in opening remarks. “This is a direct documented undeniable line between the policy choices that have directly led to the deaths of innocent Americans.”
Van Drew highlighted cases in which sanctuary jurisdictions allegedly failed to honor ICE detainer requests, resulting in the release of 6,947 criminal illegal aliens with records that included homicides, assaults, burglaries, robberies, drug offenses, weapons charges, and sexual predatory offenses. He called the policies “negligence” and a “dereliction of our duty to protect the American people.”
Families’ testimonies
Patricia Fox of Colorado told lawmakers how her daughter Carissa, while riding on the back of a motorcycle, was struck by an illegal, unlicensed, and uninsured driver who ran a stop sign, crossed three lanes of traffic and fled the scene.
“Now she’s minimally conscious, non-verbal, is wheelchair bound, and eats through a feeding tube,” Fox testified. “She has very little cognitive control over her body. She communicates discomfort through grunts and moans. At night, she often calls out to me.”
Fox said she is now her daughter’s full-time caregiver, with medical bills running into the millions and no contribution from the driver.
“Destructive sanctuary policies carry real world consequences,” she said. “Public policy should not require a threshold of victims on either side. Our children are not your collateral damage.”
Jennifer Hiling of Minnesota described the deaths of her 19-year-old son Brady, a multi-sport athlete who had turned down college scholarships to stay close to family, and his girlfriend in a head-on crash caused by a drunk driver she identified as an illegal immigrant.
The driver, who was driving against traffic, had a blood alcohol content that was more than twice the legal limit. She had prior offenses, had failed to install an interlock device, and had never possessed a valid driver’s license, Hiling said. The family learned of the crash after receiving what would be their last text from the couple heading home from a concert they attended to celebrate their anniversary.
“This entire tragedy was completely preventable,” Hiling said, her voice breaking at points. “If the woman responsible for murdering our children was deported after the first time she was drinking and driving, we wouldn’t be forced to be living this nightmare.”
She spoke of the ripple effects on Brady’s younger sisters — an 11-year-old who no longer has her brother cheering at events and a 16-year-old who is now without her older brother — and the empty garage where the couple’s car remains as evidence.
"I should be listening to Brady and [his girlfriend] tell me about college,” Hiling said. “Our entire future has been literally stolen from me.”
Laura Wilkerson, whose 18-year-old son Joshua was murdered in Texas in 2010, recounted the brutal killing in graphic detail. Joshua had given a high school classmate a ride home; the classmate, who had illegally emigrated from Belize, beat him, strangled him, bound his hands and feet, set his body on fire, and left him in a field.
“There are three manners of death,” Wilkerson said, citing the autopsy: abdomen trauma, head trauma, and strangulation. “I guess I feel lucky that he was dead before he was set on fire.”
She criticized sanctuary policies for “inviting the criminal element” and placing illegal immigrants “over the citizens.”
“You’re giving sanctuary to people that broke the law,” Wilkerson said. “Our kids are collateral damage.”
Wilkerson noted that the killer received a 99-year sentence in Texas but said many other Angel Families, or families who “lost loved ones due to crimes committed by criminal illegal aliens,” never receive such justice. She expressed frustration that families must repeatedly relive their trauma publicly because elected officials in sanctuary areas will not tell their stories.
Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, framed the hearing as a reckoning over sanctuary policies that limit cooperation with federal immigration authorities. Republicans argued that when local authorities decline ICE detainer requests — which ask jails to hold immigrants for up to 48 hours after their scheduled release so federal agents can take custody for possible deportation proceedings — they risk releasing potentially dangerous individuals back into communities.