Angel mom defends appearance at border hearing after Dem rep accuses GOP of 'exploiting' grieving families
Tammy Nobles, whose daughter was murdered by illegal immigrant, fires back at House Democrat
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}An angel mom fired back at a Democratic lawmaker who accused Republicans of "exploiting" victims' families by having them testify at a congressional hearing on the Biden-Harris border crisis.
"I have said it over and over, that we are not being forced there. Nobody is forcing us to be there. We want to be there," Tammy Nobles said on "Fox & Friends" Wednesday.
Nobles' autistic daughter Kayla Hamilton was raped and strangled to death by a MS-13 gang member in 2022. Nobles joined a panel of witnesses on Capitol Hill Tuesday to share heartbreaking testimony on illegal immigrant crime under the Biden-Harris administration.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}The hearing turned tense when Texas Democratic Rep. Veronica Escobar accused Republicans of playing politics with the House Judiciary Committee hearing.
Aberdeen police shared this combination of photos of Kayla Hamilton, who was killed in her bed by an MS-13 member and illegal immigrant from El Salvador. (Aberdeen Police Dept.)
"I think what is most frustrating to me as a member of Congress is what is happening today at this committee hearing, where we have colleagues who are exploiting people's pain for political purposes," Escobar said.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}April Aguirre, a crime victims’ advocate who also testified at the hearing, called Escobar's remark an "insulting" assumption.
"You said some very broad statements insulting these people, lost loved ones, they lost children, and we want to see a difference," Aguirre stated. "We may not understand everything that's going on, but I assure you that we're not being used in any way."
Rep. Veronica Escobar, D-Texas, gavels to order the final day of the 2024 Democratic National Convention in Chicago on Thursday, August 22, 2024. (Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
Despite claims made by Escobar, Nobles said she was at the hearing "to prevent this from happening to someone else's child."
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"I want to be there for my daughter. I'm not doing it for any political reason, it's for my daughter," she said.
Walter Martinez, a MS-13 gang member who illegally entered the U.S. at 16-years-old as an unaccompanied minor in 2022, pled guilty to Hamilton's murder and was sentenced to 70 years in jail in August.
"It's just going to get worse if [Harris] gets elected. It is going to be a lot worse than it is now," Hamiton warned, adding Martinez was a known gang member with a criminal record in El Salvador before being released into the U.S.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"It took her murder and the local police to find that information out," Nobles said.
Alexis Nungaray, the mother of a 12-year-old Texas girl who police say was strangled and thrown off a bridge by two illegal immigrants, also spoke at the hearing, slamming the Biden-Harris border policy.
"Because of the Biden-Harris administration open border policies, catch and release, [the suspects] were enrolled in the Alternatives to Detention program," Nungaray told lawmakers. "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."
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, told Fox News ahead of the hearing the Biden-Harris administration "let in 10 million people in three and a half years, 99 on the terrorist watch list."
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Fox News' Michael Ruiz and Stephen Sorace contributed to this report.
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