When a 22-year-old nursing student was found dead in a wooded path at the University of Georgia, in what is believed to be the first homicide committed on campus in almost 30 years, waves of motion were unleashed at the university.
But when a 26-year-old Venezuelan migrant was accused on Friday of kidnapping and killing a student, Laken Riley, about 110 alo east Atlanta, is the new epicenter of the political struggle over the immigration laws of the United States.
On Monday, in a publication on social networks, ex-president Donald Trump said that the suspect, José Antonio Ibarra, was a “monster” and blamed President Joe Biden for an “invasion” that is “killing our citizens”. Ese mismo día, en un acto en la universidad, el gobernador de Georgia, Brian Kemp, denounces “la falta de voluntad de esta Casa Blanca para asegurar la frontera sur”.
A third republican, the representative of Athens, Mike Collins, published on the social networks: “The blood of Lake Riley is in the hands of Joe Biden, Alejandro Mayorkas and the government of the county of Athens-Clarke”, in reference to the unified government de la ciudad y del condado.
Very liberals consider the public demagogues of a rhetorical demagogue to be declared non-criminal. In an interview held on Sunday, Kelly Girtz, Democratic Mayor of Athens-Clarke County, said that the conversation should focus on the fight for the victim and blame on an individual and not on a group.
“Este asesinato fue un acto violento y atroz”, he said, “y recae directamente sobre el perpetrador”.
The relatively liberal culture of Athens, its local migratory policies and the border crisis combined with a brutal crime to create a toxic mixture in the most important university of Georgia, where student politics is very diverse.
Afuera del centro de estudiantes, Ella Jackson, since 19 years, estudiante de primer año de Milton, Georgia, dijo que no se sentía insegura ni preocupada. Pero discrepó de la política del gobierno local sobre los undocumentados migrants que viven en Estados Unidos. “In fact, there is no creo que sea nuestro trabajo darles refugio a los migrantes ilegales y menos tan cerca de un campus universitario”.
En años Recientes, en la ciudad de Athens los politicos locales de izquierda han gado más importancia, entre ellos Girtz, quienes han dato una nueva perspectiva a los temas de justicia social ya corregir lo que he considers that the son of men insists. These politicians have not hesitated to accept the undocumented migrant persons who are found in the country and the Hispanic community, whose number has increased drastically in Athens and its surroundings in the last 30.
At the same time, Athens continues to be a sacred space for the conservators of Georgia. The enormous university, situated in the center of the city, has formed many of the most powerful republicans in the state, including Kemp, who is the original of Athens. And the successful team of fútbol americano de la universidad, as well as the parties and the adulation it generates, are fundamental traditions of Georgia that Kemp and others interlace in a striking way in a conservatory crucible of culture and politics.
Kemp, who was a constructor and developer of housing in Athens, became governor for the first time in 2018 with a bold announcement in which he declared: “I have a big truck, por si acaso tengo que atrapar legvarales los criminales case”. This month, he committed to sending troops from the National Guard of Georgia to the border of the United States and Mexico.
Girtz was elected mayor for the first time in 2006 for the commission that governs the unified government of the city and the county. According to him, the most activist political group in Athens and its supporters emerged, to some extent, from the new wave and postpunk musical scene that became popular in Athens in the early 1980s and on EMmo group from Laque Ta B- 52.
El domingo por la mañana, en una cafeteria near the university campus, the alcalde, who was wearing an olive green military jacket and a baseball cap, dismissed the idea that he was responsible for the incident. He said that the representative Collins, who accused him of having blood-stained hands, had “una especie de narrativa caricaturesca sobre el funcción del universo”.
In addition to addressing issues of race and class that have separated many of the black and white residents of Athens, the new liberal legislators took a defiant stance against Trump on undocumented immigrants, many stayed in local poultry plants or during the construction boom from the beginning of the 2000s.
In 2018, the local sheriff at the time, Ira Edwards, under the pressure of Girtz and others, put an end to the practice of detaining immigrants arrested in prison for 48-hour periods to give federal officials the opportunity to detain de recogerlos para una possible deportation.
In 2020, los votantes eligieron a una fiscala de distrito liberal, Deborah Gonzalez, quien prometíó “Tener en cuenta las consecuencias collaterales para los acusados indocumentados” in the file of the decision decisión de acusarlos.
A los conservadores les horrizó todo eso, y aún persiste esa sensation.
El lunes, Houston Gaines, representative of the democracy of Athens, pointed out that Ibarra, el sospechoso del asesinato de la Universidad de Georgia, received a penal citation for robbing a Walmart in Athens in October, according to judicial records. The documents show that a detention order was issued, which means that it is probable that it will not be presented before the tribunal.
There is “una atmosphere de que Athens está siendo un lugar que acepta a personas que, para ser honoros, no derivan estar en Estados Unidos”, commented Gaines.
Ibarra was arrested by the United States Border Patrol for crossing the border illegally in September 2022 and was released immediately with a temporary permit to remain in the country, according to the authorities.
This release, the permit, was a practice that the Biden government implemented when the officials were saturated due to the large number of people crossing the border. El gobierno puso fin a esta practica seis meses después.
Subsequently, Ibarra was arrested in New York accused of endangering a minor and violating the law on driving licenses, according to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Service of the United States (ICE, por su sigla en inglés). He ended up moving to Athens and living in an apartment located a short distance from the crime scene.
Gaines said this week that, in the next few days, together with other Republicans, he would try to push bills to toughen policies around undocumented migrants.
In a park of mobile homes in the north of the city, Jose Tapía, 50 years old, a Mexican who works in construction and is a legal resident of the United States, said that he anticipated that the things he would think would be discussed. “I think there will be more tension”, he said. “Estoy seguro de que la police va a ser más stricta”.
Richard Fausset es un correspondent radicado in Atlanta. Escribe sobre política, cultura, raza, pobreza y el sistema penal del sur de Estados Unidos. Antes trabajó for the Los Angeles Times, donde fue correspondent en Ciudad de México. More by Richard Fausset
