Mother of autistic woman allegedly raped, murdered by MS-13 gang member sues Biden admin
ABERDEEN, Md. (TND) — The mother of a 20-year-old autistic woman who police say was raped and murdered by an MS-13 gang member illegally present in the U.S. is suing the Departments of Homeland Security (DHS) and Health and Human Services (HHS) for operational negligence.
Tammy Nobles, whose daughter Kayla Hamilton died at the hands of a 16-year-old illegal immigrant from El Salvador in Aberdeen, Md. in 2022, seeks $100 million for the departments’ alleged violations of protocol in handling the migrant.
“For me, this not a political issue. This a safety issue for everyone living in the United States. This could have been anyone’s daughter. I don’t want any other parent to live the nightmare that I am living,” Nobles recently testified to the House Homeland Security Committee. “I am her voice now, and I am going to fight with everything I have to get her story told and bring awareness of the issue at the border.”
Nobles accused DHS of failing to visually inspect the immigrant by lifting his shirt to check for gang-related tattoos.
Had DHS employees performed a rudimentary visual inspection of assailant’s body, they would have seen MS-13 gang-related tattoos on his body, disqualifying him from entering U.S. soil,” Nobles’s lawyer, Brian Claypool, insisted.The mother's attorney also claims DHS employees “negligently, recklessly and/or egregiously” failed to make a “simple” phone call to El Salvador authorities to ask about the migrant’s gang affiliations.
“Had they done so, El Salvador government officials would have confirmed that the assailant was a known MS-13 gang member with a prior criminal history,” Claypool alleged.
Nobles says DHS supervisors improperly trained and managed employees to screen minors trying to enter the U.S. from El Salvador. The purported operational negligence seeped into the HHS, which “sealed Ms. Hamilton’s fate,” according to Claypool. The HHS allegedly did not verify a “legitimate” family member of the migrant before allowing him to enter the U.S.
“There were clear inconsistencies in the DHS and [HHS] records regarding the identity of the relative to whom the assailant was released,” Claypool stated. “Ultimately, [HHS's] failures allowed the MS-13 gang member, as a minor, to rent a room in a trailer park from another individual who was also an illegal immigrant.”
Both departments lacked transparency by failing to provide Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, a copy of an investigative report into Hamilton’s murder, according to Nobles. Hamilton died after the gang member strangled her with a cord and left her “on the floor like trash.” She called her boyfriend for help before dying and left a two-and-a-half minute-long voicemail capturing the attack.
Let’s take a moment and think about how Kayla felt that day – How scared she must have been that day knowing that she was dying, and if she was going to see her mommy again, her baby sister, her brother or her cat Oreo,” Nobles asked. “Kayla fought for her life that day with all that she had and, in the end, she lost to an individual that wasn’t even supposed to be allowed in the country.”Nobles advocates for stronger border control.
“If we had stricter border policies, my daughter would still be alive today,” she said. “Nothing will bring my daughter back nor fix the pain of not having her here, but I want to prevent this from happening to someone else’s child. This isn’t about immigration. This is about protecting everyone in the United States.”
In a statement to The National Desk, a DHS spokesperson said "our hearts go out to Ms. Hamilton's family," but declined to comment on the lawsuit. An HHS spokesperson issued a similar statement and declined to comment on the litigation.
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