Abigail Shimniok

Laken Riley, 22, was found dead in a wooded area on Feb. 22 after a roommate reported that she hadn’t returned from a morning run. Riley was a nursing student at Augusta University’s Athens campus.
Jose Ibarra, 26, was arrested on Feb. 23 on murder and assault charges following Riley’s death.
Ibarra is a Venezuelan man who entered the U.S. illegally, causing Georgia Republicans to use the case as a platform to petition for stricter state immigration laws. The law would give police the right to arrest migrants who enter the state illegally and give authority to local judges to order them out of the country.
The proposed law has faced pushback from some community members in Georgia based on a requirement for Georgia sheriffs to check with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement on people that do not appear to be American citizens. This is not the first time Georgia has faced backlash for harsh immigration laws, as prior to 2011, a law was set in place that allowed officers to stop anyone deemed “suspicious” to check for government documents, causing a disproportionate amount of Latinx people to be targeted by police.
Georgia’s policy director for the Southern Poverty Law Center, Isabel Otero, stated that the bill’s backers are “dead set on forcing localities to do immigration enforcement,” despite police and sheriff’s departments lacking the capacity or the funds to reasonably function as immigration control. “Unfortunately, folks have capitalized on the death of a young woman for political points in a way that’s really disheartening,” Otero said.
The University of Georgia said that it will install more security cameras and blue-light emergency call boxes on its campus. The university removed emergency call boxes a few years ago, saying they were not used by students very often.
Riley’s funeral was held on Mar. 1 at a church outside of Atlanta. She is survived by her parents, her stepfather and her three siblings.