Laken Riley is dead because Biden opened the border and looked away.
Now a Florida jury just convicted another man Biden let into this country of assaulting a child.
What he did to a 13-year-old girl at a Palm Beach County park — and what she did back — is something every American needs to know.
What Happened at Okeeheelee Park
A 13-year-old girl was sitting near a bike trail at Okeeheelee Park on the night of January 2, 2025, using her cellphone, when Santo Martinez Varela walked toward her, grabbed her, dragged her into the bushes, and assaulted her.
She fought back.
Varela tried to bind her hands behind her back to stop her.
She kept fighting.
He fled.
Days later, Palm Beach County Sheriff's deputies tracked him down using DNA evidence and arrested him.
ICE lodged a detainer the very next day.
https://twitter.com/ImmigrantCrimes/status/2063293714844258779?s=20
Last week, a jury convicted Varela – a 36-year-old illegal alien from Honduras – on four counts of sexual battery, one count of lewd or lascivious molestation, and one count of false imprisonment.
His sentencing is set for later this month.
Police also linked Varela to an armed robbery and kidnapping in West Palm Beach in December 2024 and a separate robbery in January 2025.
He was running a one-man crime spree across South Florida while Biden told America the border was under control.
Biden Let This Man In With Zero Vetting
Varela slipped across the southern border in 2023 – one of the peak Biden years when DHS was releasing millions of migrants into the interior with little more than a piece of paper and a court date.
No agent ever stopped him.
There was no criminal background check against Honduran law enforcement records – because the Biden administration's own DHS admitted under oath it had no mechanism to check criminal histories in migrants' home countries unless those countries volunteered the information.
That's not a bureaucratic oversight.
That's a policy choice.
The Heritage Foundation documented that in Fiscal Year 2023 alone, Border Patrol caught 15,267 people at the border who already had criminal convictions on their records – and that only counted the ones they actually caught.
Varela wasn't one of them.
He walked across, settled in West Palm Beach, and spent the next two years doing whatever he wanted.
This Is a Pattern, Not a Story
Laken Riley was murdered by a Venezuelan Biden released in 2022.
Rachel Morin was assaulted and killed on a Maryland trail by a Salvadoran illegal who crossed under Biden.
Jocelyn Nungaray – 12 years old – was strangled and dumped in a creek by two Venezuelans who Biden's DHS cut loose into the country.
Every one of those cases followed the same script.
A migrant crosses under Biden.
Biden's DHS releases him with no real vetting.
He commits a violent crime.
Democrats say it's a myth.
The House Homeland Security Committee put it in writing: "The same disastrous catch-and-release policies that let the killers of Laken Riley, Rachel Morin, and Jocelyn Nungaray loose into the country are also still in use by this administration."
They knew.
They kept doing it anyway.
That little girl at Okeeheelee Park fought Varela for 30 minutes while he tried to bind her hands – and Biden was on television telling America the border was secure.
Varela is going to prison.
The people who opened the door for him never will.
Sources:
- John Binder, "Illegal Alien Convicted of Raping 13-Year-Old Girl in Palm Beach County, Florida," Breitbart News, June 8, 2026.
- WPTV Staff, "Undocumented Man Held Without Bond After Being Accused of Sexually Assaulting 13-Year-Old in Palm Beach County," WPTV, January 13, 2025.
- WPTV Staff, "Undocumented Migrant Accused of Sexually Assaulting Teen May Have Committed Other Crimes, Deputies Say," WPTV, January 13, 2025.
- House Committee on Homeland Security, "Startling Stats Factsheet: Biden and Harris' Border Crisis Still Wreaking Havoc," September 23, 2024.
- House Committee on Homeland Security, "4 Hard Truths for the Biden Administration About Jocelyn Nungaray's Murder," June 21, 2024.
- Simon Hankinson, "Biden's Border Crisis Comes to the Suburbs," The Heritage Foundation, 2024.
