Try Telling This Dad Whose Daughter Was Killed By An Illegal That Open Borders Are ‘Compassionate’
Memo to the thousands of leftists demonstrating in the streets against President Trump’s clean up of America’s illegal immigration mess: Meet Joe Abraham.
More so, meet Joe’s daughter, Katie Abraham.
The 20-year-old suburban Chicago woman was spirited, charismatic, and passionate, her father said.
“She’s got this fire. Just one of those kids. When she walked into the room you knew, ‘Now it’s going to be fun,’” Joe told The Federalist in an interview from his Glenview, Ill., home earlier this week, not long after burying his youngest child.
He’s having a hard time finding the words. He can’t make it make sense. Worse, he’s been told by some not to talk about the elephant in the room: That his precious Katie, a marketing major who would have turned 21 next month, was killed by a drunk driver who never should have been in this country in the first place, according to law enforcement officials.
“I’m still in this fog,” Joe said. “I have so many questions now that it’s hitting home.” More than anything, he’s struggling with the self-righteous idea driven by asylum-for-all pushers that a wide open border is “compassionate” and enforcing the laws is somehow evil.
“How is this okay? How is this compassionate? You’re not supposed to care how it affects the country, the culture, anything. You’re supposed to shut up and deal with it. You’re supposed to deal with it because it’s ‘for the greater good.’”
And then this question that tears at the heart of an invaded nation.
“What is the greater good?” Joe asked, pausing, searching for an answer.
‘In Shock and Numb’
Katie Abraham was visiting friends at the University of Illinois in Urbana the weekend of Jan. 18. She had taken a train from her family’s Glenview, Ill., home, in the North Shore suburbs of Chicago, Joe said. According to police, Katie was a passenger in a Honda Civic, with four other friends in the early morning hours of Sunday, Jan. 19. Joe said they were on their way to grab a late-night bite to eat.
The vehicle was stopped at a red light just before 2 a.m. when it was rear-ended at full force by a red Mitsubishi Outlander, according the report. Urbana police say the red SUV was driven by 29-year-old Julio Cucul Bol, a Guatemalan citizen. Bol fled from the scene on foot.
Katie was pronounced dead at 2:17 a.m, shortly after being transported to the Carle Foundation Hospital, according to WCIA. Her friend, 21-year-old Chloe Polzin, of Deerfield, Ill., died from her injuries at the hospital the following day, the Champaign CBS affiliate reported. All five people in the Honda were taken to the hospital, and two were released with minor injuries.
Joe and his wife Michelle got the phone call that any parent who loves his child dreads. The detective broke the first bit of bad news to the Abrahams and to Katie’s mother, Joe’s ex-wife, who lives nearby.
“I was more in shock and numb,” Joe said. They had yet to learn that the driver was suspected of being intoxicated and that he was an illegal alien. Urbana police were still seeking information on the driver of the SUV. He was on the run. A day after the crash, police were able to identify the suspect as the owner and driver of the vehicle. They issued a warrant for his arrest.
On Wednesday, Jan. 22, the U.S. Marshals Service in Dallas “located and captured” the suspect, according to the police report. But the suspect, Julio Cucul Bol, authorities said, was apprehended under a phony name, Juan Jahaziel Saenz-Suarez. His falsified paperwork claimed that he was a 27-year-old Mexican national residing in Urbana. He was not. Law enforcement officials had to update their press release.
“He has now been identified as Julio Cucul Bol, a 29-year-old citizen of Guatemala. Investigators learned the identity of the suspect through Julio’s admission,” the Urbana PD release stated.
Federal authorities said Cucul Bol had previously been deported from the United States.
When arrested near Dallas, Cucul Bol was “riding an El Expreso bus destined for Matamoros, Mexico,” according to police. They said a multi-agency investigation partnered to locate the suspect.
“This type of partnership is essential to local law enforcement, and I would like to thank the women and men of the Urbana Police Department and the US Marshals Service for their efforts in capturing Saenz-Suarez.” said Urbana Police Chief Larry D. Boone in a press release.
‘Don’t Make it Political’
Cucul Bol’s apprehension was all the more remarkable because Urbana has declared itself a so-called sanctuary city, communities that “take it upon themselves to decide what laws they will and will not abide by all to shield removable aliens, especially criminals, from federal law enforcement,” as the House Oversight Committee puts it.
He was arrested on three charges, including two counts of reckless homicide, a Class 3 Felony, two counts of leaving the scene of a personal injury crash resulting in death, a Class I Felony, and aggravated driving under the influence resulting in death, a Class 2 Felony.
Joe Abraham said a detective on the case told him that the man accused of killing his daughter and her friend did not have a license to drive in Illinois. He wants to know how the Guatemalan in the country on phony identification got a loan for a vehicle.
The Federalist left a message with Urbana Police Lt. Cory Koker, who leads the Urbana Police Department Criminal Investigations Division. He did not return the call Wednesday.
Joe said Champaign County State’s Attorney Julia Rietz told him the case is strong and that she would pursue the full charges. Rietz’s office did not return a call seeking comment. After years of the judicial system seemingly caring more about the criminal than the victim, Joe said he’s not confident that true accountability will ever come.
How can there be accountability when the people in power don’t want to talk about the problem?
“People are telling me to keep the focus on Katie. ‘If you do talk to people about [the crash], don’t make it political,’” he said. In short, don’t talk about how an illegal immigrant who authorities say was previously deported was allowed to reside in Urbana to begin with. Besides, advocates of the “undocumented” insist, people die in car crashes and crimes every day, and most of those incidents don’t involve people illegal immigrants.
‘Another Family’s Worst Nightmare’
But there sure seems to be a lot of families these days mourning senseless deaths at the hands of people who broke the law to get to this country. Here are just a few of the victims of vehicular homicides reportedly caused by illegal immigrants over the past year alone — the final year of the Biden administration’s borderless regime allowing millions of migrants to pour into the United States.
› St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department Officer David Lee, who died last September when he was struck by an illegal immigrant accused of being intoxicated at the time of the crash, according to police reports.
› 7-year-old Ivory Smith, a Houston second-grader, who police say was killed in November by an illegal alien in a drunk-driving crash. Fox 26 Houston reported that the suspect had previously been placed on another ICE hold last year after being arrested on charges of assaulting a family member.
› Grayson Davis, 29, of who died in October after his vehicle was struck by a drunk driver who was also an undocumented noncitizen, according to court documents. The suspect, according to police, fled the scene and resisted arrest. Davis left behind “a legacy of joy, laughter, and unforgettable memories,” his obituary notes. “His infectious laughter, boundless energy, and unwavering love made him beloved by all who had the privilege of knowing him.”
According to media reports, the illegal immigrant charged in Davis’ death had been deported two other times — in the Obama administration and the Trump administration. He reportedly crossed the border again in 2021 during the first year of the Biden administration.
“Another family’s worst nightmare has come to pass, and it’s directly because of the Biden-Harris Administration’s reckless, open-border policies,” Rep. Michael Cloud, R-Texas, said in a press release. “Their refusal to enforce our immigration laws has taken another innocent life. How many American citizens have to be killed by illegal immigrants before Joe Biden and Kamala Harris decide to act?”
The heart-breaking headcount goes on and on and on.
‘How Many More Americans Need to Die?’
Yes, there were thousands of drunk driving deaths last year involving U.S. citizens. But Joe Abraham raises the point that should be obvious: You can’t kill someone if you’re not here.
And the people who tell us over and over again that illegal immigrants commit violent crimes at lower rates than native-born citizens have been lying to us. A study by the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) concluded that illegal aliens “have above average conviction rates for homicide and sexual assault” when correct data is used, as Monroe Harless reported last year in The Federalist.
Last fall, we learned that nearly 650,000 criminal illegal aliens were on the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Non-Detained Docket (NDD) as of July 21, 2024 and “roaming free in communities throughout the United States,” according to Rep. Mark Green, chairman of the House’s Homeland Security. The numbers includes some 15,000 illegal immigrants convicted of or charge with murder, and more than 20,000 of sexual assault.
Green said it “defies common sense.”
“Under President Biden and his ‘border czar,’ Vice President Harris, DHS [Department of Homeland Security] law enforcement has been directed to mass-release illegal aliens whom they know have criminal convictions or are facing charges for serious crimes — and these dangerous, destructive individuals are making their way into every city and state in this country,” Green said in a statement. “How many more Americans need to die or be victimized before this administration is forced to abide by the laws they swore to uphold? This is madness. It is something no civilized, well-functioning society should tolerate.”
‘Until Someone Buries a Child’
The painful truth that Joe Abraham has to live with is that his daughter and so many other victims like her would likely be alive today had an illegal immigrant not been allowed entry into the country — or allowed to stay after committing crimes.
“It’s so frustrating. It’s really hard for me to put into words,” Joe said. “I’m not anti-immigrant. My parents immigrated legally. They did it the right way.”
“It just seems to me there are no rules. It’s like a free-for-all. And my daughter was killed and put on an altar of what we’re doing on this immigration thing, and I don’t know what we’re doing.”
Trump and his administration are bringing back law and order at the border, first and foremost by insisting that there be a border. And as federal agents round up illegal immigrants with long and often violent rap sheets, the leftists who have wholly endorsed their asylum are cranking up their resistance movement. Things already are turning violent in the streets and in the political arena.
For Joe Abraham, who lost his father the day after Christmas only to lose a child less than a month later, the questions are many. The answers are few and hard.
“An illegal immigrant who shouldn’t have been here killed my daughter. I can’t follow the logic,” he said. “But it’s mind-boggling for me that it’s so hard for people to understand … This is just chaos.”
“Until someone buries a child I don’t want to hear from them,” the grieving father added.
Matt Kittle is a senior elections correspondent for The Federalist. An award-winning investigative reporter and 30-year veteran of print, broadcast, and online journalism, Kittle previously served as the executive director of Empower Wisconsin.
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