Hawley slams Dem activist for downplaying migrant crime: 'Not an actual issue?'

"Here's Laken Riley," said Hawley as her picture was posted behind him. "Her murder, her horrific murder at the hands of this illegal migrant who was also unlawfully paroled in the United States. [Is] her death not an actual issue?"

The activist, Adam Isacson, who works as director of defense oversight at the Washington Office on Latin America, responded by saying: "Of course it's an issue, it's a tragedy."

"I didn't say that Laken Riley's death was not an actual issue, I said that migrant crime is not an actual issue," said Isacson. "Migrant crime is much less of an issue than U.S. citizen-committed crime."

To which Hawley answered, "[Riley] is dead because of migrant crime."

Hawley shot back: "I want the record to be clear on this, that migrant crime is a real issue."

"I think the Laken Riley Act is absolutely necessary," he said. "In fact, I propose an amendment to the Laken Riley Act that will cover people like Travis Wolfe. I think that ICE ought to be detaining, ought to be required to detain, those illegal migrants who commit violent crimes against children like Travis Wolfe."

Speaking to Fox News Digital after the hearing, another one of the experts testifying, Andrew Arthur, a former immigration judge and law and policy expert at the Center for Immigration Studies, said that Hawley was "voicing the frustration that very many Americans feel about migrant crime in the United States."

Despite the theatrics, Arthur said it was a "good hearing" because there was "a lot of bipartisan agreement on the need to secure the border." 

"Customs and Border Protection referred to Remain in Mexico as indispensable for border security the first time that it was used under the Trump administration," he said. "I think that when you look at the amount of money that has flowed into the cartels' pockets over the last four years, you know, as we've seen, 8 million, 10 million people come unlawfully into the United States and you contrast that to the number of people who were sent back to Mexico, I think that the balance is definitely in favor of enforcing the border and potentially re-implementing Remain in Mexico.

"As long as the migrants continue to come to the United States in large numbers, the cartels are going to get rich, they're just going to expand their capabilities and they're just going to ship more drugs into the United States."