Chance of Laken Riley's illegal immigrant killer doing time in El Salvador prison addressed by lawmakers
The Trump administration's recent mass deportations of Venezuelan gang members to a notorious, maximum-security prison in El Salvador has sparked questions about whether Augusta University student Laken Riley's convicted killer could be sent there.
A Georgia judge in November found Jose Ibarra, a Venezuelan illegal immigrant, guilty of 10 total counts in connection with the 22-year-old nursing student's death and sentenced him to life in prison. Ibarra, 27, attacked Riley while she was jogging along a trail on the University of Georgia campus and beat her to death.
"I’m still furious that Jose Ibarra wasn’t sentenced to death in Georgia—because that’s the justice Laken Riley deserved," Republican Georgia State Sen. Colton Moore told Fox News Digital. "This monster should suffer every single day for what he did. If we can send him to El Salvador’s hellhole of a prison, where he’ll rot in misery, then I’m all for it. And if President Trump makes it happen, he’ll have my full support."
Moore added, however, that he has not "heard anything about Georgia relinquishing control of its state justice system or handing over prisoners like Ibarra to foreign authorities."
Chris Swecker, attorney and former assistant director of the FBI's Criminal Investigative Division, told Fox News Digital he thinks Ibarra will be deported "very quickly."
Ibarra, who is currently serving a life sentence after his February conviction by bench trial, is fighting his conviction in Athens-Clarke County, where his public defender is pushing for a new trial. A hearing on the matter has been scheduled for June 6.
"The Ibarra case…that thing's radioactive," Swecker said. "They'll find a legal basis for deportation."
As for the El Salvador prison, a terrorism confinement center that can hold up to 40,000 inmates, it's unclear exactly if Ibarra could be sent there if he is eventually deported.
The Trump administration recently deported hundreds of illegal immigrants with Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua (TdA) ties to El Salvador after Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, which allows the deportation of natives and citizens of an enemy nation without a hearing.
Venezuela has refused to take back its former citizens who entered the United States illegally, which is likely why the administration sought an alternative deportation location, Swecker suggested.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the White House did not respond to Fox News Digital's inquiries about the possibility of Ibarra being deported to El Salvador.
Meanwhile, Ibarra's older brother, 29-year-old Diego Ibarra — who has ties to the Venezuelan gang TdA — was sentenced to serve four years in federal prison after pleading guilty to presenting a fake green card to authorities when Jose was arrested after Riley's murder.
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His younger brother, 25-year-old Argenis Ibarra, was sentenced to time served after he pleaded guilty to one count of possession of a fraudulent document in December 2024.
The brother's female roommate, Rosbeli Flores-Bello, 29, also of Venezuela, was sentenced to time served after she pleaded guilty to one count of possession of a fraudulent document in December 2024.
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All three defendants will be delivered to ICE for deportation, according to the Justice Department. Diego Ibarra will face deportation following his four-year federal prison sentence.
It is unclear if any of the defendants will be sent to El Salvador, as only Diego had apparent TdA ties, according to court documents.
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"As for his brothers—they should never have been in our country in the first place," Moore said of Diego and Argenis. "If our borders had been secured, Laken Riley would still be alive today, along with countless other innocent Americans. I stand 100% with President Trump in his fight to protect our country and rid it of these violent criminals."
Republican Georgia Rep. Mike Collins told Fox News Digital that if he had it his way, "every one of them would spend life in prison with Jose—they deserve nothing less."
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"I applaud the Trump Administration and Pam Bondi’s Department of Justice for following through and getting the migrant friends of Laken Riley’s killer out of our country," he said. "Joe Biden shipped these Tren de Aragua thugs to Athens, and real leadership is sending them back to where they came. If I had it my way every one of them would spend life in prison with Jose—they deserve nothing less."
Critics of the El Salvador deportation method say it's illegal for the Trump administration to deport illegal immigrants to the terrorism confinement center.
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U.S. District Judge James Boasberg recently ordered an immediate stop to the deportation efforts so he could have more time to consider if Trump's use of the Alien Enemies Act was illegal.
Lauren-Brooke Eisen, senior director of the Brennan Center’s Justice Program, said in a March 12 analysis that "even if imprisonment in El Salvador does not strip incarcerated citizens of their status, it is still illegal under Trump’s own touted First Step Act."
"Signed by Trump in 2018 during his first term, the law included changes in federal sentencing in addition to reforms intended to improve the conditions of those in federal prisons. The law mandates that the federal government place people in ‘a facility as close as practicable to the prisoner’s primary residence, and to the extent practicable, in a facility within 500 driving miles of that residence,’" Eisen wrote.