Alberto Bazbaz, an ally of the president, has been handed the top intelligence job despite leading a nine-day search for missing girl later found dead in her own bed

This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

Mexicans have expressed incredulity at the appointment of a former prosecutor to the country’s top intelligence position, even though he once oversaw a notorious nine-day search for a missing girl who was eventually found lying dead in her own bed.

Alberto Bazbaz, a close ally of President Enrique Peña Nieto, was named on Thursday as the new head of Mexico’s intelligence agency, Cisen, at a time when the country’s authorities are struggling to contain violent crime.

Bazbaz previously led the finance ministry’s intelligence unit since shortly after Peña Nieto took office in December 2012.

But he is best known for overseeing the case of Paulette Gebara, a four-year-old who was reported missing from her family’s apartment in a Mexico City suburb in 2010.

Despite extensive searches and a media coverage, investigators found no trace of the girl for nine days, when her decomposing body was found in her own bed – even though the room had supposedly been sealed by police.

Mexico maelstrom: how the drug violence got so bad Read more

At the time, Peña Nieto was the governor of the state of Mexico, (which surrounds the national capital on three sides), and Bazbaz was the region’s attorney general.

Bazbaz resigned amid outrage over the bungled investigation, and a subsequent investigation concluded that Paulette died accidentally of asphyxiation.

Analysts say that during Bazbaz’s leadership of the financial intelligence unit, Mexico failed to make progress tracking down the fortunes of the country’s drug cartels.

His appointment to Cisen comes less than six months before presidential elections.

The switch in leadership at Cisen – which is part of the interior ministry – follows the resignation of the interior minister, Miguel Ángel Osorio Chong, who stepped aside on Wednesday to seek a senate seat. He left after an especially violent 2017 – which is set to be the country’s most murderous in recent memory.

Political observers said that Bazbaz’s appointment owed more to his links with Peña Nieto’s inner circle than his skills as a law enforcement official.

“The question here is not what is your area of expertise, but what [political] group do you belong to,” said Carlos Bravo Regidor, professor at the Centre for Teaching and Research in Economics. “If you have some relevant experience, that’s great, but it’s not a prerequisite for the job.” </s> Officials believe they have found the body of Mollie Tibbetts, a student at Iowa who had been missing for more than a month.

Officials believe they have found the body of Mollie Tibbetts, a student at Iowa who had been missing for more than a month.

Investigators believe they have found the body of Mollie Tibbetts, a University of Iowa student who has been missing for more than a month. (Source: Iowa Department of Criminal Investigation via AP, File)

MONTEZUMA, Iowa (AP) - A man from Mexico living in the U.S. illegally has confessed to kidnapping college student Mollie Tibbetts while she was running in her small Iowa hometown, killing her and dumping her body in a cornfield, authorities said Tuesday.

Cristhian Bahena Rivera, 24, was arrested and charged with first-degree murder in the death of Tibbetts, whose July 18 disappearance set off a massive search involving state and federal authorities.

Rivera led investigators early Tuesday to a body believed to be Tibbetts in a cornfield about 12 miles (19 kilometers) southeast of Brooklyn, Iowa, where Tibbetts was last seen running, Division of Criminal Investigation special agent Rick Rahn said.

"I can't speak about the motive. I can just tell you that it seemed that he followed her, seemed to be drawn to her on that particular day, for whatever reason he chose to abduct her," Rahn told reporters at a news conference outside the sheriff's office in Montezuma, where Rivera was being jailed.

The news that the highly publicized and gruesome crime was allegedly committed by a person in the country illegally drew immediate outrage. Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds, a Republican, said: "As Iowans, we are heartbroken, and we are angry."

"We are angry that a broken immigration system allowed a predator like this to live in our community, and we will do all we can to bring justice to Mollie's killer," she said in a statement.

The arrest is likely to spark calls for a further crackdown on illegal immigration, which President Donald Trump has made a core policy of his administration.

He often has claimed widespread crime by people living in the country illegally, citing among other things the indictments of 11 suspected MS-13 gang members from El Salvador charged in connection with the slayings of two Virginia teens. Trump also has held events at the White House with members of "angel families," whose relatives were killed by immigrants.

Although Trump claims legal U.S. residents are less likely to commit crime, several studies from social scientists and the libertarian think tank Cato Institute find that isn't accurate and states with a higher share of people living in the country illegally have lower violent crime rates.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said that it lodged a federal immigration detainer for Rivera after he was arrested on the murder charge. That move means the agency has probable cause to believe he is subject to deportation.

Investigators said they believed Rivera had lived in the area from four to seven years. Rahn declined comment on his employment history, but described Rivera as someone who lived in a rural area and kept to himself. A search of Iowa court records revealed no prior criminal history, and it's unclear whether he had ever been subject to prior deportation proceedings.

Rivera's Facebook page described him as being from Guayabillo, a community of less than 500 people in the state of Guerrero. It's about a three-hour drive from the resort city of Acapulco.

Investigators said they zeroed in on Rivera after obtaining footage from surveillance cameras in Brooklyn. The footage showed a Chevy Malibu connected to Rivera that was driving back and forth as Tibbetts was running in the area, Rahn said.

An affidavit attached to the criminal complaint against Rivera alleged that he admitted to investigators he got out of his car and started running alongside Tibbetts.

Tibbetts grabbed her phone and said she was going to call the police. The affidavit says Rivera panicked and then said he blacked out. Rivera next remembers seeing her earphones on his lap, and taking her bloody body out of the trunk of his car, it said.

"The defendant further described during the interview that he dragged Tibbetts on foot from his vehicle to a secluded location in a cornfield," the affidavit said.

Investigators said they had earlier searched the area for Tibbetts but didn't find her, noting the body was covered by corn stalks when recovered early Tuesday.

Rahn said that Rivera was cooperating with investigators and speaking with the help of a translator. He said an autopsy would be performed on the body Wednesday by the state medical examiner's office, which would assist investigators in understanding whether Tibbetts had been assaulted or tried to fight him off.

A conviction on first-degree murder carries a mandatory sentence of life in prison without parole in Iowa, which doesn't have the death penalty.

On Tuesday night, deputies were guarding a trailer where the suspect had lived on a gravel road outside Brooklyn near a dairy farm.

Tibbetts' disappearance set off a massive search involving dozens of officers from the FBI, as well as state and local agencies. They focused much of their efforts in and around Brooklyn, searching farm fields, ponds and homes. Investigators asked anyone who was around five locations, including a car wash, a truck stop and a farm south of town, to report if they saw anything suspicious on July 18.

Last week, Vice President Mike Pence met privately with the Tibbetts family during a visit to Iowa and told them that "you're on the hearts of every American."

At Brooklyn City Hall, city clerk Sheri Sharer said Tuesday was a sad day for the town.

"It never crossed our mind that she wouldn't come home safe," she said.

The University of Iowa mourned the loss of Tibbetts, a psychology major who would have started her junior year this week.

"We are deeply saddened that we've lost a member of the University of Iowa community," said university official Melissa Shivers, who urged students to seek counseling and other support services as needed.

Copyright 2018 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. </s> The former police chief of the Mexican city of Iguala -- where 43 students disappeared two years ago -- was arrested Friday in connection with the case, according to Mexico's National Security Commission's Twitter page.

Felipe Flores Vazquez, who had been sought since the students went missing, had been labeled as one of the "probable masterminds" of the disappearance by then-Attorney General Jesus Murillo Karam.

Karam said in November 2014 that the students were abducted on orders of a local mayor, turned over to a gang who killed them, burned their bodies in a landfill and tossed the remains into a river.

Of the missing 43, authorities have been able to identify the remains of one. </s> The disappearance of a well-liked college student from America’s heartland had touched many people since she vanished one month ago while out for a run. But the stunning news that a Mexican man living in the U.S. illegally has allegedly confessed to kidnapping and murdering her thrust the case into the middle of the contentious immigration debate and midterm elections.

President Donald Trump seized on the man’s arrest in the death of Mollie Tibbetts on Tuesday to call the nation’s immigration laws “a disgrace” that will only be fixed by electing more Republicans. Iowa’s Republican governor, facing a tough re-election challenge in November, blasted an immigration system that “allowed a predator like this to live in our community.” And Iowa’s two GOP U.S. senators called the death a tragedy that “could have been prevented.”

Cristhian Bahena Rivera, 24, was arrested and charged with first-degree murder in the death of the 20-year-old Tibbetts, whose July 18 disappearance set off a massive search involving state and federal authorities.

Rivera led investigators early Tuesday to a body believed to be Tibbetts in a cornfield about 19 kilometres southeast of Brooklyn, Iowa, where Tibbetts was last seen going for a routine evening run, Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation special agent Rick Rahn said.

“I can’t speak about the motive. I can just tell you that it seemed that he followed her, seemed to be drawn to her on that particular day, for whatever reason he chose to abduct her,” Rahn told reporters at a news conference outside the sheriff’s office in Montezuma, where Rivera was jailed on $1 million cash-only bond.

Within hours, Trump noted the arrest at a rally in West Virginia on a day when his former personal lawyer and ex-campaign chairman both faced major legal problems.

“You heard about today with the illegal alien coming in, very sadly, from Mexico and you saw what happened to that incredible, beautiful young woman,” Trump told the crowd in Charleston. “Should’ve never happened. Illegally in our country. We’ve had a huge impact, but the laws are so bad. The immigration laws are such a disgrace, we’re getting them changed, but we have to get more Republicans. We have to get ’em.”

Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds said residents were heartbroken and angry. U.S. Sens. Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst vowed: “We cannot allow these tragedies to continue.”

Trump has made further crackdown on illegal immigration a core policy of his administration. He often has claimed widespread crime by people living in the country illegally, citing among other things the indictments of 11 suspected MS-13 gang members from El Salvador charged in connection with the slayings of two Virginia teens. Trump also has held events at the White House with members of “angel families,” whose relatives were killed by immigrants.

Although Trump claims legal U.S. residents are less likely to commit crime, several studies from social scientists and the libertarian think-tank Cato Institute find that isn’t accurate and that states with a higher share of people living in the country illegally have lower violent crime rates.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said it lodged a federal immigration detainer for Rivera after he was arrested on the murder charge. That move means the agency has probable cause to believe he is subject to deportation.

Investigators said they believed Rivera had lived in the area from four to seven years.

WATCH: Iowa authorities say Cristhian Rivera was charged with murder in the death of Mollie Tibbetts

In a statement late Tuesday, Yarrabee Farms said Rivera had worked at its farms for the last four years and was an employee in good standing. The Brooklyn-based company said it was shocked to hear that Rivera was charged in Tibbetts’ death. Yarrabee Farms is owned by the family of Craig Lang, a prominent Republican who previously served as president of the Iowa Farm Bureau.

A search of Iowa court records revealed no prior criminal history, and it’s unclear whether he had ever been subject to prior deportation proceedings.

Rivera’s Facebook page described him as being from Guayabillo, a community of less than 500 people in the Mexican state of Guerrero. It’s about a three-hour drive from the resort city of Acapulco.

Investigators said they zeroed in on Rivera after obtaining footage from surveillance cameras in Brooklyn. The footage showed a Chevy Malibu connected to Rivera that was driving back and forth as Tibbetts was running in the area, Rahn said.

An affidavit attached to the criminal complaint against Rivera alleged that he admitted to investigators he got out of his car and started running alongside Tibbetts.

Tibbetts grabbed her phone and said she was going to call the police. The affidavit said Rivera panicked and then said he blacked out. Rivera next remembers seeing her earphones on his lap, and taking her bloody body out of the trunk of his car, it said.

“The defendant further described during the interview that he dragged Tibbetts on foot from his vehicle to a secluded location in a cornfield,” the affidavit said.

Investigators said they had earlier searched the area for Tibbetts but didn’t find her, noting the body was covered by corn stalks when recovered early Tuesday.

READ MORE: Trump administration halts policy of turning over immigrant parents to prosecutors

Rahn said Rivera was co-operating with investigators and speaking with the help of a translator. He said an autopsy would be performed on the body Wednesday by the state medical examiner’s office, which would assist investigators in understanding whether Tibbetts had been assaulted or tried to fight him off.

Rivera’s initial court appearance is scheduled for 1 p.m. Wednesday in Montezuma.

A conviction on first-degree murder carries a mandatory sentence of life in prison without parole in Iowa, which doesn’t have the death penalty.

Tibbetts’ disappearance set off a massive search involving dozens of officers from the FBI, as well as state and local agencies. They focused much of their efforts in and around Brooklyn, searching farm fields, ponds and homes. Investigators asked anyone who was around five locations, including a car wash, a truck stop and a farm south of town, to report if they saw anything suspicious on July 18.

Last week, Vice-President Mike Pence met privately with the Tibbetts family during a visit to Iowa and told them that “you’re on the hearts of every American.”

At Brooklyn City Hall, city clerk Sheri Sharer said Tuesday was a sad day for the town.

“It never crossed our mind that she wouldn’t come home safe,” she said.

The University of Iowa mourned the loss of Tibbetts, a psychology major who would have started her junior year this week.

“We are deeply saddened that we’ve lost a member of the University of Iowa community,” said university official Melissa Shivers, who urged students to seek counselling and other support services as needed.

Rahn said he met with the parents and other relatives of Tibbetts to inform them of the arrest Tuesday. He told them that the investigation revealed that they had “raised a great daughter.”

“We got to know Mollie,” he said. “She was a phenomenal individual.” </s> A man from Mexico living in the U.S. illegally has confessed to kidnapping college student Mollie Tibbetts while she was running in her small Iowa hometown, killing her and dumping her body in a cornfield, authorities said Tuesday.

Cristhian Bahena Rivera, 24, was arrested and charged with first-degree murder in the death of the 20-year-old Tibbetts, whose July 18 disappearance set off a massive search involving state and federal authorities.

Rivera led investigators early Tuesday to a body believed to be Tibbetts in a cornfield about 19 kilometres southeast of Brooklyn, Iowa, where Tibbetts was last seen running, Division of Criminal Investigation special agent Rick Rahn said.

"I can't speak about the motive. I can just tell you that it seemed that he followed her, seemed to be drawn to her on that particular day, for whatever reason he chose to abduct her," Rahn told reporters at a news conference outside the sheriff's office in Montezuma, where Rivera was being held on $1 million US cash-only bond.

"You heard about today with the illegal alien coming in, very sadly, from Mexico and you saw what happened to that incredible, beautiful young woman," Trump told the crowd in Charleston. "Should've never happened. Illegally in our country. We've had a huge impact, but the laws are so bad. The immigration laws are such a disgrace, we're getting them changed, but we have to get more Republicans. We have to get 'em."

Iowa's two Republican senators also described Tibbetts' death as a tragedy "that could have been prevented," and Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds said residents were heartbroken and angry.

"We are angry that a broken immigration system allowed a predator like this to live in our community, and we will do all we can to bring justice to Mollie's killer," Reynolds, a Republican, said in a statement.

Trump has made further crackdown on illegal immigration a core policy of his administration. He often has claimed widespread crime by people living in the country illegally, citing among other things the indictments of 11 suspected MS-13 gang members from El Salvador charged in connection with the slayings of two Virginia teens. Trump also has held events at the White House with members of "angel families," whose relatives were killed by immigrants.

Although Trump claims legal U.S. residents are less likely to commit crime, several studies from social scientists and the libertarian think-tank Cato Institute find that isn't accurate and states with a higher share of people living in the country illegally have lower violent crime rates.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said that it lodged a federal immigration detainer for Rivera after he was arrested on the murder charge. That move means the agency has probable cause to believe he is subject to deportation.

Investigators said they believed Rivera had lived in the area from four to seven years. Rahn declined comment on his employment history, but described Rivera as someone who lived in a rural area and kept to himself. A search of Iowa court records revealed no prior criminal history, and it's unclear whether he had ever been subject to prior deportation proceedings.

Rivera's Facebook page described him as being from Guayabillo, a community of less than 500 people in the state of Guerrero. It's about a three-hour drive from the resort city of Acapulco.

Investigators said they zeroed in on Rivera after obtaining footage from surveillance cameras in Brooklyn. The footage showed a Chevy Malibu connected to Rivera that was driving back and forth as Tibbetts was running in the area, Rahn said.

An affidavit attached to the criminal complaint against Rivera alleged that he admitted to investigators he got out of his car and started running alongside Tibbetts.

Tibbetts grabbed her phone and said she was going to call the police. The affidavit says Rivera panicked and then said he blacked out. Rivera next remembers seeing her earphones on his lap, and taking her bloody body out of the trunk of his car, it said.

"The defendant further described during the interview that he dragged Tibbetts on foot from his vehicle to a secluded location in a cornfield," the affidavit said.

Investigators said they had earlier searched the area for Tibbetts but didn't find her, noting the body was covered by corn stalks when recovered early Tuesday.

Rahn said that Rivera was co-operating with investigators and speaking with the help of a translator. He said an autopsy would be performed on the body Wednesday by the state medical examiner's office, which would assist investigators in understanding whether Tibbetts had been assaulted or tried to fight him off.

Rivera's initial court appearance is scheduled for 1 p.m. CT Wednesday in Montezuma.

A conviction on first-degree murder carries a mandatory sentence of life in prison without parole in Iowa, which doesn't have the death penalty.

On Tuesday night, deputies were guarding a trailer where the suspect had lived on a gravel road outside Brooklyn near a dairy farm.

Tibbetts's disappearance set off a massive search involving dozens of officers from the FBI, as well as state and local agencies. They focused much of their efforts in and around Brooklyn, searching farm fields, ponds and homes. Investigators asked anyone who was around five locations, including a car wash, a truck stop and a farm south of town, to report if they saw anything suspicious on July 18.

Last week, Vice-President Mike Pence met privately with the Tibbetts family during a visit to Iowa and told them that "you're on the hearts of every American."

At Brooklyn City Hall, city clerk Sheri Sharer said Tuesday was a sad day for the town.

"It never crossed our mind that she wouldn't come home safe," she said.

The University of Iowa mourned the loss of Tibbetts, a psychology major who would have started her junior year this week.

"We are deeply saddened that we've lost a member of the University of Iowa community," said university official Melissa Shivers, who urged students to seek counselling and other support services as needed.

Rahn said he met with the parents and other relatives of Tibbetts to inform them of the arrest Tuesday. He told them that the investigation revealed that they had "raised a great daughter."

"We got to know Mollie," he said. "She was a phenomenal individual." </s> (CNN) One of the "probable masterminds" of the disappearance of 43 Mexican students was arrested Friday morning after being on the lam for more than two years , according to Mexican officials.

The announcement was made by Mexico's National Security Commission via Twitter.

"(We) have executed the arrest warrant against Felipe Flores, former Iguala police chief," the commission tweeted.

The attorney general offered a reward of up to $2.5 million pesos (about $134,392 dollars) last year for any information that led to his capture.

Felipe Flores Velázquez was captured as he was visiting his spouse in Guerrero, the state where the students went missing in 2014, National Security Commissioner Renato Sales Heredia said at a news conference.

Mexican federal authorities made the arrest in coordination with the attorney general's office, the country's navy and the Center of National Investigation and Security, an intelligence-gathering agency.

How did the students go missing?

The mayor then turned the students over to a gang who killed them, burned their bodies in a landfill and tossed some their remains into a nearby river, Karam added.

Tomás Zerón de Lucio, the head of Mexico's Criminal Investigations Agency, said two months later that the incident was a case of mistaken identity.

He said the criminal group accused of executing the students thought they belonged to a rival gang, also operating around the city of Iguala where the students were last seen.

"We can conclude that the motivation was consistent (with the theory that) the students were identified by the criminals as members of an organized crime rival group that operated in the region. That was the reason why they were deprived of their freedom, initially, and then of their lives," Zerón de Lucio said in early 2015.

What was the role of the former chief?

Flores Vasquez helped protect city's police officers who were connected with the students' disappearance, authorities said.

He also colluded with the city's mayor to persecute and attack the students and ordered local police to stop them from attending the protest.

The former chief is being charged with organized crime and kidnapping, officials said Friday.

Some 130 others have been arrested in connection with the case, Sales Heredia, added. </s> Mexican security forces were on Wednesday searching for a newly elected congresswoman who was kidnapped at gunpoint by armed men on a highway in the central state of Hidalgo.

Norma Azucena Rodríguez Zamora, 32, was travelling with her driver and assistant when at least two gunmen opened fire on her vehicle, causing it to flip over and injuring the two staff members.

The men then dragged out the congresswoman and forced her into their car, reported to be a black VW Bora.

Members of Ms Rodríguez’s party, the Left-wing PRD, demanded authorities do everything in their power to find her alive.

The politician was due to take office on September 1 as a congresswoman for the neighbouring state of Veracruz, a hotbed of drug cartel activity that has suffered some of the worst violence in the country in recent years.

Tuesday's ambush took place on the same highway where a mayor from the nearby state of Puebla, Genaro Negrete Urbano, was kidnapped in July. He was later shot dead, his body found earlier this month. </s> OCAMPO, Mexico — The entire police force of a Mexican town in the state of Michoacán is being questioned in the assassination of a mayoral candidate, the office of the state’s attorney general told CNN on Monday.

Fernando Angeles Juarez of the Party of the Democratic Revolution was killed Thursday morning by unknown gunmen.

On Saturday, Michoacán State Police went to Ocampo to question 28 municipal officers in a routine check unrelated to Juárez’s death, the law enforcement agency said on Sunday. When they arrived, some of those officers fired shots in the air and resisted their authority, Michoacán State Police said. The agency said all 28 officers were detained on Sunday.

On Monday, the Michoacán State Attorney General’s Office confirmed that the officers are now under investigation in Juárez’s death.

Mexico is due to go to the polls on July 1 to pick its next president as well as hundreds of federal, state and municipal positions.

Juarez was one of two aspiring politicians killed in the western state of Michoacán in less than 24 hours. Omar Gomez Lucatero, an independent candidate for mayor of Agulilla, was shot dead on Wednesday afternoon.

The Mexico Attorney General’s Office said it is leading the investigations into the two candidates’ deaths. </s> MONTEZUMA, Iowa — The attorney for a Mexican man accused of killing an Iowa college student challenged the government’s statement Wednesday that the suspect has been living in the United States illegally.

Cristhian Bahena Rivera, 24, made his first appearance in court in the death of Mollie Tibbetts, whose July 18 disappearance while out jogging set off a massive search.

In a court document, defense attorney Allan M. Richards stated that an employer has said Rivera has legal permission to be in the U.S. The document named Craig Lang, a former head of the Iowa Board of Regents, which oversees the state’s three public universities. Lang is co-owner of a dairy that employed Rivera.

Rivera’s immigration status was confirmed by an E-Verify electronic immigration status check, the Lang family said in a statement.

Richards sought a gag order and said comments about the case by President Donald Trump would “poison the entire possible pool of jury members.”

He also asked that the proceedings be closed.

“The government has weighed in at the highest levels with a predisposition that my client is guilty,” he said.

Rivera, who was ordered held on $5 million bond, has allegedly confessed to the killing, which was quickly thrust into the immigration debate shaping the midterm elections.

Trump seized on the man’s arrest on Tuesday to call the nation’s immigration laws “a disgrace” that will only be fixed by electing more Republicans. Iowa’s Republican governor, facing a tough re-election challenge in November, blasted an immigration system that “allowed a predator like this to live in our community.” And Iowa’s two GOP U.S. senators called the death a tragedy that “could have been prevented.”

Rivera led investigators early Tuesday to a body believed to be Tibbetts in a cornfield about 12 mile southeast of Brooklyn, Iowa, where she was last seen going for an evening run, Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation special agent Rick Rahn said.

“I can’t speak about the motive. I can just tell you that it seemed that he followed her, seemed to be drawn to her on that particular day, for whatever reason he chose to abduct her,” Rahn told reporters.

Within hours, Trump noted the arrest at a rally in West Virginia.

“You heard about today with the illegal alien coming in, very sadly, from Mexico and you saw what happened to that incredible, beautiful young woman,” Trump told the crowd in Charleston. “Should’ve never happened. Illegally in our country. We’ve had a huge impact, but the laws are so bad. The immigration laws are such a disgrace. We’re getting them changed, but we have to get more Republicans. We have to get ‘em.”

Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds said residents were heartbroken and angry. Sens. Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst vowed that they “cannot allow these tragedies to continue.”

Trump has made crackdown on illegal immigration a core policy of his administration. He often has claimed widespread crime by people living in the country illegally, citing among other things the indictments of 11 suspected MS-13 gang members from El Salvador charged in connection with the slayings of two Virginia teens. Trump also has held events at the White House with members of “angel families,” whose relatives were killed by immigrants.

Although Trump claims legal U.S. residents are less likely to commit crime, several studies from social scientists and the libertarian think tank Cato Institute have concluded that isn’t accurate and that states with a higher share of people living in the country illegally have lower violent crime rates.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said it lodged a federal immigration detainer for Rivera after he was arrested on the murder charge. That move means the agency has probable cause to believe he is subject to deportation.

Investigators said they believed Rivera had lived in the area from four to seven years.

In a statement late Tuesday, Yarrabee Farms said Rivera had worked at its farms for the last four years and was an employee in good standing. The Brooklyn-based company said it was shocked to hear that Rivera was charged in Tibbetts’ death. Yarrabee Farms is owned by the family of Craig Lang, a prominent Republican who previously served as president of the Iowa Farm Bureau.

A search of Iowa court records revealed no prior criminal history, and it’s unclear whether he had ever been subject to prior deportation proceedings.

Rivera’s Facebook page described him as being from Guayabillo, a community of less than 500 people in the Mexican state of Guerrero. It’s about a three-hour drive from the resort city of Acapulco.

Investigators said they zeroed in on Rivera after obtaining footage from surveillance cameras in Brooklyn. The footage showed a Chevy Malibu connected to Rivera that was driving back and forth as Tibbetts was running in the area, Rahn said.

An affidavit attached to the criminal complaint against Rivera alleged that he admitted to investigators he got out of his car and started running alongside Tibbetts.

Tibbetts grabbed her phone and said she was going to call the police. The affidavit said Rivera panicked and then said he blacked out. Rivera next remembers seeing her earphones on his lap, and taking her bloody body out of the trunk of his car, it said.

Rivera was cooperating with investigators and speaking with the help of a translator, Rahn said. An autopsy was planned for Wednesday.

A conviction on first-degree murder carries a mandatory sentence of life in prison without parole in Iowa, which does not have the death penalty.
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Tibbetts would have started her junior year at the University of Iowa, where she was a psychology major.

Her family released a statement Wednesday thanking people from around the world for the “outpouring of love and support that has been shared in Mollie’s name.”

The statement added, “We know that many of you will join us as we continue to carry Mollie in our hearts forever.”
Mexicans react with incredulity after President of Mexico Enrique Peña Nieto appointed Alberto Bazbaz to the position of head of the CISEN intelligence service. Bazbaz is known for having overseen a 9-day search for a missing girl, Paulette Gebara Farah, who was eventually found dead in her own bed.