An illegal immigrant who was ordered removed from the United States several years ago has been arrested in connection with a car crash in Virginia that killed a young college student.
Elvis Jamil Cruz Ferrera, an 18-year-old Honduran national, was arrested on a charge of negligent homicide in February after a car crash in Chesapeake, Virginia, that killed 19-year-old Old Dominion University student Lauryn Nicole Leonard that month. according to Virginian-Pilot: Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) confirmed that Cruz Ferrera entered the country illegally in 2016 and never showed up for a subsequent immigration court hearing before being ordered deported. (Related: Kamala Harris has spent her entire senator career opposing border security)
According to The Virginian-Pilot, Cruz Ferrera was arrested by Border Patrol agents in McAllen, Texas, in October 2016 after crossing into the US illegally as an unaccompanied minor. He was 11 years old at the time.
Cruz-Ferrera was soon released from ICE custody and ordered to appear before an immigration judge two years later, in September 2018. But the then-13-year-old did not show up for court and was ordered deported.
GUATEMALA CITY, GUATEMALA – MAY 29: U.S. Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) ICE agents look on as Guatemalan police investigate the scene after detaining a suspected human trafficker in Guatemala City on May 29, 2019. (Photo by John Moore/Getty Images)
According to the Pilot, he eventually settled in southeastern Virginia, where he had multiple run-ins with local police. Virginia State Police charged him with reckless driving and unlicensed driving in November 2023, and he was charged again with unlicensed driving on January 14.
However, none of these charges reportedly triggered an investigation into his immigration status.
According to the Pilot, Cruz-Ferrera was heading south on Interstate 664 on February 19 when his Pontiac Vibe struck Leonard's Toyota Solara, causing both drivers to go off the highway and strike a guardrail, with Leonard dying in the crash. The suspect was charged with reckless driving, failure to carry insurance, operating a vehicle without a valid license and not having a valid vehicle inspection, and was also charged a few days later with negligence resulting in death.
Leonard's mother, Dana Hargrove, said she didn't understand why no investigation was conducted into Cruz-Ferrera's immigration status, despite his previous arrest.
“I think it's crazy,” she said, according to the pilot. “Why didn't anybody check up on her? … She's just minding her own business and then you come along and turn my life upside down.”
Leonard, a sophomore at Old Dominion University, had reportedly told his family he'd taken a job doing freshman orientation just hours before the crash. Leonard's brother, Eric Hargrove, also questioned the police's handling of Cruz Ferrera's immigration history.
“I don't want to say anything that sounds far-right or far-left,” Hargrove told the Pilot, “I'm just saying that if the deportations had gone ahead as scheduled, this may not have happened.”
Leonard's death follows several murders of American women in recent months allegedly committed by illegal immigrants: in February a Venezuelan man was charged with the murder of Georgia nursing student Laken Riley, earlier this year a Salvadoran man was arrested in the murder of Maryland mother Rachel Morin, and in June two Venezuelan men were arrested in the rape and murder of 12-year-old Jocelyn Nungaray.
ICE did not respond to a request for comment from the Daily Caller News Foundation.
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