*Trigger Warning: this article contains material that may not be suitable for all readers*
On January 29th, 2025, Donald J. Trump signed The Laken Riley Act into Law.
22-year-old Laken Riley was murdered by José Antonio Ibarra on February 22, 2024 on the University of Georgia campus. Riley set out for a run on a trail after calling her mother at 9:03 am. Data from her smartwatch shows her heart stopped beating at 9:28 am.
She was a nursing student at the University of Augusta and loved to run.
Ibarra is a Venezuelan 26-year-old man who entered the United States illegally.
Surprisingly, the bill’s purpose is not to protect female victims of violence. The Laken Riley Act bill requires illegal immigrants to be detained who have been arrested for burglary, theft, larceny, shoplifting, and other serious crimes.
Using Laken Riley’s name in a bill to support a right-wing agenda rather than to protect women against the crisis of violence within this country is dismissive of a bigger issue within the U.S.
According to the World Health Organization, 30% of all women will experience some form of physical or sexual violence during their life.
I recently watched a terrifying movie on Netflix called Woman on the Hour. The 2023 film was directed by actress Anna Kendrick who also played one of the main characters, Sheryl Bradshaw. The movie was based on a true story that follows a serial killer and sex offender, Rodney Alcala, who targeted primarily young girls throughout the 1960s and ‘70s in California.
Although Alcala is dead and has not killed anyone since the late 1970s, innocent women still are killed each year in this country in similar ways his victims experienced such as Laken Riley.
I do not quite know the solution yet for keeping harmful individuals out of the U.S., but it is important for American society to understand that Ibarra was a threat to women’s safety, not all immigrants themselves.
They use her name for a bill to demonize immigrants yet are ignorant to the men born within our borders who abuse women. The bill could have been named “Detention Act”.
It is a shame her family consents to her name being used for a bill that will not prevent women in the future from being harmed by non-citizens, since the bill is in act only after a crime has been committed.
Will using her name in this bill lower acts of violence towards women? Probably not. Will this bill prevent illegal immigrants from killing and sexually abusing women if they want to? No. Does this bill address how we will in the future protect women in our country from violence? No. Regardless, men, U.S. citizens or not, will commit acts of violence against women when they desire.
According to the National Library of Medicine, 1 in 4 women are victims of domestic violence within the United States.
In 2018, Christopher Watts was having an affair. What did he do rather than confront reality and confess? Watts murdered his family, his pregnant wife, Shannon Watts and two daughters. He placed his daughters in an oil tank and suffocated his wife before burying Shannon Watts.
Obviously, Chris Watts was not in the correct state of mind when committing this crime.
How can we solve acts of violence towards women committed by men? Sadly, there is not one answer. To me, it starts with taking a good look at the kind of upbringing and mental health issues men within America experience.
Therapy and mental health resources for men need to be more available in the United States. With this, women can feel as though they are provided with safe environments to do activities such as going for a run.
