By CALEY FOX SHANNON
MILWAUKEE – The brother of a Maryland woman whose 2023 murder has fanned the flames of immigration policy debate addressed a packed stadium of delegates Tuesday night at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.
“Open borders are often portrayed as compassionate and virtuous,” said Michael Morin, 40, of Churchville, Maryland.“But there is nothing compassionate about allowing violent criminals into our country and robbing children of their mother. My sister’s death was preventable.”
Rachel Morin, a 37-year-old mother of five, was reported missing August 5, 2023, after going for a jog on the Ma & Pa Trail in Bel Air. Her body was found nearby the following day.
After 10 months of investigation, Harford County Sheriff Jeff Gahler announced in a June 15 press conference the arrest of Victor Antonio Martinez-Hernandez, a 23-year-old citizen of El Salvador, for Rachel’s murder.
According to Gahler, the suspect illegally entered the country in February 2023 after allegedly murdering a woman in his home country. Martinez-Hernandez is also accused of a home invasion and assault in Los Angeles in March of last year.
Video and DNA evidence from the California crime helped law enforcement connect Morin’s murder to Martinez-Hernandez. Authorities in Tulsa, Oklahoma, arrested Martinez-Hernandez and extradited him to Maryland.
Maryland State Sen. Johnny Ray Salling, R-Baltimore County, is one of 24 convention delegates in Milwaukee. Salling told Capital News Service on July 11: “We have a problem with crime along the border. We have criminals that are coming to our nation that are just, not committing crimes, that they’re murdering people.”
“We had it here in Maryland, as you know, in Harford County,” Salling said, referring to Morin’s death. “I think that’s a major issue of security, of public safety.”
Despite high profile cases like Morin’s, the popular conservative theory that immigrants disproportionately commit violent crime is not based on statistical evidence.
A 2020 white paper by the CATO Institute, a libertarian think tank, investigated whether immigrants in Texas commit more or less violent crime than U.S. citizens.
The paper concludes: “Whether one focuses on criminal convictions, arrests, or the number of individuals convicted or arrested, the results are the same: illegal immigrants have a lower crime rate than native-born Americans in Texas.”
The CATO researchers note that Texas is the only state to record criminal arrests and convictions by immigration status.
At the convention Tuesday night, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, mentioned Rachel Morin in a list of women allegedly murdered by immigrants, alongside Riley and Kate Steinle of San Francisco.
Fox News host Sean Hannity invited Rachel’s mother Patricia Morin to his show following Martinez-Hernandez’s arrest.
“It’s like we’ve opened our doors and you let a stranger into your house,” Patricia told Hannity of U.S. border security. “We’re not protecting ourselves, we’re not protecting our families.”
President Joe Biden has not reached out to the family, according to Randolph Rice, their attorney.
Trump called the Morin family in June to express his condolences and later invited Patricia, Rachel’s sister Rebekah and Rice to lunch June 30 at his Virginia club.
Rice told CNS that the family supports Trump’s candidacy and “continues to support anyone willing to make changes at the southern border that will prevent another murder like Rachel’s.”
To a crowded convention floor Tuesday night, Michael Morin concluded: “I pray that we hold worldly leaders accountable for safety and justice for innocent people. I pray that we make our country safe and secure in the memory of my sister Rachel, who loved life.”
Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, a Democrat, and former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, a Republican, both reached out to the Morin family last month to offer condolences for Rachel’s death.
On June 24, fourteen Republican state delegates signed a letter to Moore urging him to increase coordination between local law enforcement and ICE. The letter, which Del. Ryan Nawrocki, R-Baltimore County, posted on Facebook,opened with Morin’s murder.
“The tragic and unnecessary death of Rachel Morin has profoundly impacted our community,” the letter reads. “She was a mother who was brutally raped and murdered by an illegal alien from El Salvador, a violent criminal with a prior warrant for murder who should have never been in the country in the first place.”
Martinez-Hernandez is charged with first- and second-degree murder, first- and second-degree rape, kidnapping and third-degree sex offense. He is being held without bond at the Harford County Detention Center as he awaits trial, which is scheduled for October.
On July 9, State Attorney Alison Healey filed a notice to seek the maximum penalty of life without parole for Martinez-Hernandez.
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