Almost a year after record heights of illegal border crossings, Republican lawmakers unveiled plans to construct a memorial honoring Americans who had lost loved ones to violence caused by illegal immigrants at a press event on Friday afternoon.
Rep. Abe Hamadeh, R-Ariz., the lawmaker spearheading the effort, said it would serve as a reminder of the costs of bad policy.
“Now, this bill authorizes a permanent national memorial in Washington, D.C. honoring U.S. citizens and lawful residents whose lives are taken by individuals unlawfully present in the United States,” Hamadeh said.
“But in many ways, it also shames the politicians who allowed this situation to happen,” he added.
Hamadeh was joined Friday by several angel families who had experienced personal loss and by members of The American Border Story (TABS), an organization dedicated to documenting the U.S. southern border crisis.
TABS Executive Director Nicole Kiprilov thanked President Donald Trump for his efforts to tamp down immigration-related crime.
“I’d like to thank President Trump for leading an historic administration that has put these victims and families at the center of our immigration agenda,” Kiprilov said. “Secretary Kristi Noem, border czar Tom Homan and the entirety of the Trump administration has been working night and day tirelessly to ensure that our border is secure and that these tragedies that the Biden administration allowed to happen will never happen again.”
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Hamadeh said his proposal would serve as a contrast between the Biden and Trump administrations. His announcement comes as the Trump administration’s DHS announced this past week that it had deported more than 2.5 million illegal immigrants in under a year.
According to data collected by U.S. Customs and Border Protection, encounters at the U.S. Southern Border peaked last year with over 300,000 encounters in December 2024. Almost a year later, encounters have dropped precipitously with just 11,600 encounters this past September.
Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., one of the lawmakers who also attended Friday’s event, said those numbers demonstrate two different postures towards enforcing the country’s laws.
“They ended the remain in Mexico policy, restarted catch and release,” Biggs said of the Biden administration’s decision to bring immigrants with pending asylum claims inside the United States before adjudicating them.
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Angel families of victims at the event expressed outrage that the remnants of those policies persisted in some cases.
In particular, they decried efforts to protect illegal immigrants with criminal records.
Jennifer Boss, one of the parents there, said that after authorities discovered her daughter’s remains in a trash can mixed with bleach, the man suspected of having committed the crime had been let go.
“He was let go the day after he was arrested. Illinois gave him grace and freedom in the name of fairness with their policies. And let him go. They also protected him from being picked up from ICE. Again, because of their policies,” Boss said.
Kiprilov said that in addition to pointing back to a chapter in American history, the memorial proposed by Hamadeh would serve as a reminder going forward of the importance of strong immigration policy.
“Today’s legislation, the American Border Story Memorial, is about truth, memory and accountability,” Kiprilov said.
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