A professor from Warren Wilson College in North Carolina recently claimed that Laken Riley’s murder has been “politicized.”
Laken Riley was a student at the University of Georgia who was ambushed and murdered in 2024 at the hands of Jose Ibarra, an illegal alien.
Riley’s murder led to the passage of the Laken Riley Act, signed into law by President Donald Trump on Jan. 29, which makes the Department of Homeland Security detain illegal aliens “who have been arrested for burglary, theft, larceny, or shoplifting” and “authorizes states to sue the federal government for decisions or alleged failures related to immigration enforcement.”
[RELATED: STURGE: The Laken Riley Act makes college women safer]
An English professor at Warren Wilson College, Paula Garrett, expressed concern over the idea that Riley’s death might be used to supposedly demonize illegal aliens, as noted by The Echo Newspaper.
“There are crimes [committed] every day by people who have full citizenship…and we don’t call attention to their immigration status,” Garrett said. “That was a convenient, politicization in order to continue…the use of force that is being used to attack and criminalize people who are here seeking a better life.”
She added that the Laken Riley Act could allegedly push Americans to have hostile views towards illegal aliens, as The Echo Newspaper noted.
“We’re being sold a picture of immigrants as enemies, and we’re being sold a picture of rights as if they are a pie…our piece will be smaller if they get a piece . . . That’s just not accurate, but that is the narrative, the story that we’re being sold.”
Garrett states that she “came to Warren Wilson in 2007 because the College’s careful blend of sacred and funky speaks to me.”
She has written about “the laws governing artificial insemination, particularly in same-sex relationships,” and about “current issues, particularly LGBTQ rights, contemporary religion, and politics.”
[RELATED: UGA announces additional $1.7 million on security one year after Laken Riley’s murder]
Garrett is not the only one to hold such opinions.
Christine Swoap, who teaches Spanish at the college, “worries that the Laken Riley Act will make rebuilding even more difficult for a community that already harbors fears of deportation,” according to The Echo Newspaper.
She continued, expressing worries over the fate of illegal aliens: “It’s very variable, but now as of January, with the new administration, there’s an incredible amount of fear of not just getting resources, but where to go to get resources. You don’t know by looking at someone how they’re going to treat you.”
President Trump has taken several actions since the beginning of his second term to crack down on illegal immigration, such as empowering Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agents to arrest illegal aliens.
He has also signed an executive order that could lead to the deportation of pro-terrorism students.
Recently, the administration attempted to deport a former Columbia University student who was strongly involved in the 2024 anti-Israel campus protests, though that effort was temporarily barred by a New York City judge.
Campus Reform has reached out to Professors Garrett and Swoap for comment. This article will be updated accordingly.
This article was originally published at campusreform.org
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