Laken Riley poses for a photo posted to Facebook. Riley, a nursing student in Georgia, was found dead near a lake on the University of Georgia campus Feb. 22, 2024. (Laken Riley/Facebook)
The NYPD, however, has said it does not have a record of Ibarra's arrest.
Typically, when ICE learns an illegal immigrant is arrested on criminal charges, the agency will issue a detainer that requests the local police department hold the suspect until ICE can take over and begin deportation proceedings.
In Ibarra’s case, ICE said he was released by the NYPD before a detainer could be issued.
New York City, however, is a "sanctuary city" with relatively recent laws passed by City Council severing many ties between the NYPD and ICE.
"A woman is dead in Georgia because the New York City Council passed local laws barring the NYPD from cooperating with ICE, and as such the suspect was released without any notification to federal law enforcement," Borelli tweeted this week, accompanied by a list of laws that restricted local cooperation with the immigration agency.
Former New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio speaks during a press conference in front of Gracie Mansion Sept. 20, 2019, in New York City. (Yana Paskova/Getty Images)
Similar reforms continued under the de Blasio administration, including in 2017, when the City Council passed a bill prohibiting "City agencies from partnering with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to enforce federal immigration law."
"The de Blasio Administration today announced the issuance of citywide guidance and new NYPD protocols to clarify and institutionalize the City’s policy that it will not voluntarily cooperate with federal immigration enforcement activities, and will only coordinate in limited circumstances, including where there is a public safety risk," a press release from the de Blasio administration stated of the law at the start of 2018.
Borelli, who has served on City Council representing portions of Staten Island since 2015, argued "it's interesting to see people trying to backtrack on the impact that these laws have on the cooperation between ICE and city law enforcement."
GEORGIA STUDENT MURDER SUSPECT CONFIRMED TO BE ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT
"But the proof is in the pudding," he said.
The New York Republican pointed to comments made by local politicians when the laws were passed, arguing that Democrats wanted to sever communication between local law enforcement and federal authorities when involving illegal immigrants.
NYC Mayor Eric Adams' administration is implementing a curfew for migrants Tuesday, a report says. (Jeff Bachner/New York Daily News/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)
Following Laken Riley’s murder, Adams said this week that he supports altering city laws that would open the doors to New York City officials working with federal authorities on immigration matters involving violent suspects or repeat offenders.
"I want to go back to the standards of the previous mayors who I believe subscribed to my belief that people who are suspected of committing serious crimes in this city should be held accountable," Adams told reporters at City Hall Tuesday.
"We should not be allowing people who are repeatedly committing crimes to remain here, and we cannot collaborate with ICE in the process," the mayor added.
Adams has repeatedly spoken out in support of keeping New York City as a sanctuary city, saying illegal immigrants in the Big Apple should not live in fear of receiving city services, such as attending a school, due to their immigration status.
When asked about Borelli's comments and the laws passed by City Council under his administration, de Blasio told Fox News Digital in a statement that it's time for "tougher border policies."
"I trust the NYPD, and they say they never encountered the accused individual. But it’s sickening that a young, promising life was cut short. Any way you slice it, we need tougher border policies and comprehensive immigration reform," de Blasio said.
The former mayor also pointed Fox Digital to an opinion piece he wrote this month, in which he proposed accepting "Republican demands for greater border security in exchange for full funding of a humane and functioning asylum process," along with "spending billions to create the facilities necessary on the Mexican side of the border, including the concessions and incentives the Mexican government would require in order to accept this plan."
Migrants cross the Rio Grande at the U.S.-Mexico border in Piedras Negras, Coahuila state, Mexico, Oct. 6, 2023. (Alejandro Cegarra/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
"He’s a sick puppy," Borelli told Fox Digital when asked about the brutal attack. "[He] would not have withstood screening, we hope, if we had a proper system of vetting and deporting people."
Ibarra is in custody and was charged with the felonies of malice murder, murder, kidnapping, false imprisonment, aggravated assault, aggravated battery and concealing the death of another, as well as the misdemeanor of physically hindering a 911 call, according to the affidavit filed Feb. 23.
New York State Senate Republicans on Wednesday announced the renaming of legislation that would allow local law enforcement agencies to cooperate with ICE. The legislation will now be known as "Laken's Law" in memory of Riley.
New York's Mayor Bill de Blasio makes declarations at a mass vaccination site at Yankee Stadium during the COVID-19 pandemic in the Bronx borough of New York City Feb. 5, 2021. (REUTERS/Carlo Allegri)
"Because of New York law, because of New York sanctuary state laws, local law enforcement do not notify federal immigration officials when they take someone into custody, even if they're here — especially when they're here illegally," Republican New York state Sen. Robert Ortt said at a press conference Wednesday.
"So, Laken Riley's murderer, albeit an alleged murderer, was in custody, law enforcement custody, and he was released without notification to ICE, to federal authorities, because of policies and laws passed by Democrats here in New York State,"
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Ortt argued that if legislation allowing law enforcement to work with ICE were in place back when Ibarra was arrested by the NYPD, Riley "would be alive today."
"It's not an opinion. It's not what I think. I'm not split. It's a fact. If this was the law of the State of New York, she'd be alive today. Her family would have a daughter today," he said.
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