The New York Post is featuring a report this week that starts out as a rather heartwarming story of an endangered child finding rescue and safety in America. 17-year-old Reynel Alexander Hernandez of Honduras crossed the Texas border into the United States during the summer and requested assistance. Under the Biden administration’s policy of handling unaccompanied minors, he was moved into protective custody and provided with care. He later made it to Jacksonville, Florida, where Francisco Javier Cuellar took him in to live with him and his four children and gave him a job working at the family business. It’s a portrait in miniature of the American dream, isn’t it?
Well, it would be, except for a few pesky details. You see, Reynel Alexander Hernandez was actually Yery Noel Medina Ulloa. And he wasn’t 17. He was actually 23. And last month he stabbed Francisco Javier Cuellar to death before being discovered covered in blood by the police. Mr. Cuellar’s children have been left without a father while Ulloa sits in jail awaiting trial.
A 24-year-old Honduran immigrant who’s charged with murder in the brutal stabbing death of a Florida man had crossed the US border illegally months earlier while posing as an unaccompanied minor, an investigation by The Post found.
Yery Noel Medina Ulloa was busted Oct. 7 in Jacksonville when he was found covered in blood after allegedly killing Francisco Javier Cuellar, 46, a father of four who had taken in the immigrant who told authorities he was 17.
Police said they followed a trail of blood back to the victim’s home and arrested Ulloa, placing him in a juvenile detention facility.
It wasn’t until Oct. 13 that authorities learned his real identity — and his true age.
Some of the details of Ulloa’s journey remain unknown, but the number of things that went wrong in this tragic string of events is both dismaying and infuriating. Without the open border policies that led to the Biden border crisis, Ulloa might not have been so easily able to simply stroll into Texas. If our border security personnel weren’t so completely overwhelmed, they might have been able to vet Ulloa properly and discover that he was not in fact a minor and he could have been sent back to wait in Mexico. (Or perhaps not, since Biden wasn’t allowing the Remain in Mexico policy to be enforced during the summer.)
Having succeeded in pulling off the ruse, how did Ulloa make it from Texas to Florida? Was it on one of the many secret private flights that the Biden administration has been using to ship illegal aliens away from the border to destinations all over the country? Some of the flights from Texas did go to Jacksonville, so it’s certainly possible. But nobody seems to know because we apparently can’t even keep records of all the illegal aliens that are being shipped across the country. But if Francisco Javier Cuellar had been aware that he was not taking in an endangered minor, but actually a deceptive and clearly dangerous adult, he might still be alive today.
Ulloa was in regular touch with his mother back in Honduras who was fully aware of the deception he was engaged in. He told her that he was being cared for by his “Uncle Frank” and that he was doing fine. He even told her that “Uncle Frank treats me like a son.” Surely this murderer’s family bears some of the responsibility for not letting American authorities know what was going on.
Governor Ron DeSantis has been made aware of the situation and he is furious, to say the least.
“This horrific crime is the latest example of how unfettered illegal migration costs Floridians’ lives,” DeSantis’ office told The Post.
“If not for the Biden Administration’s unlawful ‘catch and release’ policy, Mr. Cuellar would still be alive today.
“Governor DeSantis is committed to doing everything in his power to keep Floridians safe. But as long as the Biden Administration persists in refusing to enforce our country’s immigration laws, Americans are at needless risk.
The ongoing Biden border crisis is about a lot more than just “kids in cages” and an overwhelmed immigration system. It has very real impacts on the people of the United States in multiple ways. And as we’ve seen yet again with this story, some of those impacts can be deadly. Ulloa is currently in jail awaiting prosecution. Sadly, it’s too late for that to do any good for the family of Mr. Cuellar.
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