As Vice President Kamala Harris landed in Arizona Friday afternoon to visit the U.S.-Mexico border, former President Donald Trump‘s campaign held a press conference with the families of those affected by migrant crime and fentanyl who blame the Biden administration for their children’s deaths.
The mothers of Jocelyn Nungaray, 12, and Rachel Morin, 37, spoke of the impact of illegal immigrants allegedly killing their children, while another mom, whose son Weston Fundner died from a fentanyl overdose, also joined the call on Friday.
All three moms said they had not heard from the vice president on the deaths of their children.
“It has been three months and 10 days since my daughter’s life was taken,” Alexis Nungaray said. “She was just a little girl trying to get a soda from the corner store. They saw an innocent young girl and they made her a target, telling her they needed help with directions and her being the kind, helpful girl that she was, she was just trying to help them, little did she know this would cost her her life.”
Johan Jose Rangel Martinez, 21, and Franklin Jose Pena Ramos, 26, were both charged with capital murder for Jocelyn’s death after her body was found in a creek in June in Houston.
Alexis Nungaray said current U.S.-Mexico border policies were to blame for her daughter’s death.
“Individuals like that are not humane, they are monsters,” she said. “These monsters are predators, predators to our children, and these are the kind of individuals that we just so openly let in our county because of Kamala Harris. I believe these open border policies are responsible for the death of my 12-year-old daughter.”
The suspects in Jocelyn‘s case, both Venezuelan nationals, entered the United States illegally, a spokesperson for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) previously confirmed to Newsweek.
Martinez and Ramos “illegally entered the U.S. without inspection, parole or admission by a U.S. immigration officer on an unknown date and at an unknown location,” according to ICE’s statement.
Former President Donald Trump comforts Alexis Nungaray, mother of Jocelyn Nungaray who was killed by undocumented migrants, along with Patty Morin, mother of Rachel Morin who was murdered by an undocumented migrant, at the U.S.-Mexico border fence on August 22 in Sierra Vista, Arizona. Inset, Anne Fundner is seen on July 16 in Milwaukee. As Vice President Kamala Harris landed in Arizona Friday afternoon to visit the U.S.-Mexico border, Trump’s campaign held a press conference with the families of those affected by migrant crime and fentanyl who blame the Biden administration for their children’s deaths.
Rebecca Noble/Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
While Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, visits the southern border on Friday, she is expected to lay out more information about her immigration policy.
Harris has backed the Biden-led bipartisan border security bill earlier this year before it was torpedoed by Republicans at the request of Trump. The former president urged congressional Republicans to kill the bill, depriving the administration of introducing a flagship immigration policy in the months before an election that could be decided on the issue. Harris pledged to revive the bill at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.
Republicans have labeled Harris as President Joe Biden‘s “border czar,” though she was never officially given that title. Biden assigned her the task of addressing the “root causes” of migration to the U.S. from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras.
Trump, the GOP’s presidential nominee, has blamed Harris for large numbers of illegal border crossings over the past four years since she took over the Democratic nomination in July when Biden stepped down from the race.
Trump has promised to carry out mass deportations of migrants, stating millions could be removed from the U.S. under his administration. He has not provided details on how such a program would work. Nearly all Democrats and even some Republicans have cast doubt on Trump’s proposed mass deportation plan, arguing that the U.S. lacks the necessary means to implement it.
All three families on the call on Friday have been highlighted by the Trump-Vance campaign as examples of the current administration’s failed border policies.
Alexis Nungaray and Patty Morin, whose daughter Rachel was killed in Maryland in 2023, appeared with Trump when he visited the southern border in Arizona in August, while Anne Fundner, whose 15-year-old died from an accidental fentanyl overdose, spoke at the Republican National Convention in July.
Morin told reporters on Friday that her daughter had gone out for a walk as she often did in Maryland, but waiting in the woods was an illegal immigrant who assaulted her and dragged her through the trees. Victor Martinez Hernandez, 23, was later arrested and charged with her murder.
“He raped her, there were 10-15 head wounds that she suffered. He strangled her and he stuffed her into a drainpipe. This is the most horrendous and brutal murder that has happened in this county,” Morin said, later adding that her town over 2,000 miles from the southwest border was not immune from illegal immigrant crime.
Morin said she did not know “how many more have to die” before Harris changes her position on border security.
“Kamala Harris has not acknowledged my daughter’s death. Kamala Harris has not addressed that there is a problem at the border,” she added.
Vice President Kamala Harris waves as she boards Air Force Two as she departs for the U.S.-Mexico border from Joint Base Andrews, Maryland on September 27.
Kevin Lamarque/Pool via AP
Fundner, whose son died in 2022, said the flow of fentanyl into the U.S. was the fault of the current administration and said that “every town is a border town.”
According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), an estimated 107,543 Americans died from a drug overdose last year. Synthetic opioids like fentanyl were responsible for 70 percent of all deaths.
On the call, Trump campaign senior adviser Danielle Alvarez said the three mothers’ stories highlighted the crime wave brought about by ineffective border security.
The Trump campaign said Harris had shown a “lack of commitment” to border security, by not visiting the border more than once in her role as vice president, while also advocating for more pathways to citizenship for unvetted immigrants.
All three families said Harris could act now to address migrant crime.
The Harris-Walz campaign told Newsweek via email on Friday that it could not comment on the individual comments made by the families.
Harris-Walz 2024 spokesperson Ammar Moussa did say in a statement on Friday that the former president cared more about his own self-interest than solutions.
“He wants a problem to run on, not a fix for the American people,” Moussa said. “When he was president, Trump created chaos at the border, taking our already broken immigration system and making it worse – leaving behind a mess for the Biden-Harris administration to clean up. Americans deserve a president who puts national security over their own self-interest – that’s Kamala Harris.”
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