On one end of the Senate dais Wednesday was Mitchell Soto-Rodriguez, an illegal immigrant “Dreamer” who came to the U.S. at age 9, put herself through college and earlier this year was sworn in as a police officer, despite not having legal status in the U.S.
Three seats away sat Tammy Nobles, the mother of Kayla Hamilton, a 20-year-old autistic woman who was slain in 2022 by a man authorities say came to the U.S. illegally, had ties to MS-13 back in El Salvador, and was caught and released under President Biden‘s more relaxed approach to border enforcement.
Democrats said the immigration debate should be defined by the optimism of cases like Officer Soto-Rodriguez. Republicans said it’s impossible to get there as long as there are cases like Hamilton‘s.
Officer Soto-Rodriguez made her plea to lawmakers, saying she and other Dreamers have earned their place in America.
“For many of us, the country that we come from is just in our memories. The only country we know is here, where we stay,” she told the Judiciary Committee. “We’re not asking for handouts, we’re asking for recognition of our humanity and our contributions.”
She said her mother brought her to the U.S. from Mexico, following her father who’d already been in the U.S. She said she had to navigate hurdles, including watching her family sleep in a car because her father couldn’t find a job.
She decided on police work her sophomore year of high school when she, her mother and her sister were in a car accident and the responding officer was so helpful. But college was a struggle. She got her associate’s degree while working two jobs, but when she went for a more advanced degree she had to drop out to work and support her family.
She eventually completed her full degree and went to work for her old high school while also getting involved with the Blue Island, Illinois, police department. When the chief asked why she wasn’t an officer, she said her status as an illegal immigrant “Dreamer” here under the Obama-era DACA program meant that while she could hold some jobs, police work was foreclosed. Blue Island then changed its policy and she went through the academy and was sworn in earlier this year.
Ms. Nobles, meanwhile, told the committee the brutal details of her daughter’s slaying: The iPhone charging cord used to strangle her, the call she made to her boyfriend that went to voicemail, recording two and a half minutes of her death struggle, and her boyfriend finding her body with the cord wrapped so tightly around her neck that he had to use his teeth to loosen it.
The person accused of the slaying came to the U.S. from El Salvador as a juvenile migrant and under government policies was quickly turned over to social workers who placed him with a sponsor in Maryland. Ms. Nobles said the boy had behavioral issues and left that home to live with his half-brother, but things soured again and he ended up in the same trailer park community as Hamilton.
Ms. Nobles said authorities could have learned of the suspect’s ties to MS-13 with a phone call back to El Salvador or by checking his body for tattoos, but those signs were missed.
She said there was a lesson for the immigration debate.
“Not all are innocent children and seeking the American dream. Some are criminals and are here to destroy American lives,” she said.
Sen. Richard Durbin, Illinois Democrat, said the fate of those like Officer Soto-Rodriguez shouldn’t be held hostage to the border mess.
“I cannot imagine how we can hold these young people accountable for what you’re concerned with,” he told Republicans.
But Sen. Lindsey Graham, South Carolina Republican, said a legalization now would entice still more people to come. And he said even if lawmakers now only legalize those who came years ago, that leaves hundreds of thousands of new illegal immigrant children who have arrived in the time since Mr. Biden took office, such as the suspect in Hamilton’s slaying.
Mr. Graham wondered if that population would have to be legalized next.
“Is there any end?” he said. “If that’s the model to get to be a citizen, it’s never going to stop. I don’t mind dealing with the Dream Act population but I don’t want to incentivize endless waves of illegal immigration.”
After Officer Soto-Rodriguez told her story, Mr. Durbin turned to Jessica Vaughan, policy studies director at the Center for Immigration Studies, which backs stricter immigration controls, and asked if the country would be better off if the officer were to be deported.
“No, I don’t,” Ms. Vaughan replied.
Mr. Graham then turned to Ms. Nobles and asked if the country would have been better off if the illegal immigrant accused of slaying her daughter had been prevented from entering.