The death of Iowa college student, Mollie Tibbetts, has been used by people in the White House to further their agenda on Immigration.
Tibbetts was a 20-year-old University of Iowa student who went missing over a month ago. Her body was discovered Tuesday, and shortly after a suspect was arrested and charged with first-degree murder. The suspect was identified as 24-year-old Cristhian Rivera, an undocumented immigrant, reports CNN.
Since his identification, Rivera has been the subject of many conversations, making Tibbetts the secondary focus in her own death. In Wednesday’s White House press briefing, Sarah Huckabee Sanders brought up Tibbetts but used the opportunity to stress the importance of changing immigration policy.
Black GOP commentator Candace Owens mentioned Tibbetts in a tweet as a political talking point.
Sam Lucas, who is related to Tibbetts through great-grandparents, told the Washington Post that she was so outraged by the tweet from Owens, she was moved to respond to her.
Lucas was not the only family member of Tibbetts to speak out against the politicization of her death. Billie Joe Calderwood, Tibbetts’s aunt, wrote a reminder to everyone on Facebook that “evil comes in every color.”
So far, it does not appear that Owens has responded to Lucas’s tweet.
Lucas told the Post that she doesn’t think her cousin should be part of any discussion related to immigration in the United States.
“People are saying, ‘If we had better border control, your cousin would never be dead,’ ” she said. “That may be true but also, a lot of young American women get killed by legal immigrants or people who were born here.”
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