A man accused of strangling a naturalized U.S. citizen and mother of four to death in Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s district last year has been revealed as being an illegal migrant who was released into the country after being encountered at the border by federal agents, an ICE official tells Fox News Digital.
Now the victim’s immigrant family are calling on President-elect Donald Trump to investigate the woman’s death, saying they want to know why he hadn’t been detained at the border before allegedly going on to slay his landlady after she tried to evict him for being an unruly, jobless tenant who lounged around all day drinking alcohol and smoking pot.
They say the illegal migrant, 20-year-old Deiby Vidal Carrillo, had a troubled past in his native Colombia but was not properly vetted before being let go at the border and then going on to allegedly kill Zoraida Leo, an immigrant from the Dominican Republic who, according to her sister, “realized the American Dream” in 2018 when they both became naturalized citizens.
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Zoraido Leo, left in both images, and her sister Maria Leo, right in both images. (Provided by the family via Hiram Monserrate)
But Leo’s life ended on Dec. 5 when she confronted Vidal Carrillo over his unruly behavior and told him to pack his bags and leave, the family told Fox News Digital via their spokesperson, Hiram Monserrate, a former Democrat New York state senator and local Democrat district leader.
That’s when Vidal Carrillo strangled her to death, according to the Queens District Attorney’s Office, who say Leo’s son found her body at the entrance to a bathroom inside her home. Vidal Carrillo was crying at the scene when police arrived with scratch marks on his face, prosecutors say.
An autopsy determined that she had died by strangulation. She leaves behind three sons and a daughter.
Family members, residents and local leaders held a rally outside Leo’s home on Wednesday, demanding answers and calling for justice. They spoke about how Leo had looked after her ailing 85-year-old mother before her death, was an active member of her church and was a member of a local women’s rights group.
They are also upset that local prosecutors had not made public his immigration status after the killing and that he never showed up for his immigration hearing before Leo’s death.
“I came here legally in the 1990s. My family worked and played by the rules and realized the American Dream,” Maria Leo, the victim’s sister told Fox News Digital in a statement.
Illegal migrant Deiby Vidal Carrillo has been charged with murder. (Provided by Hiram Monserrate)
“The federal authorities let this delinquent go, and he killed an innocent woman, my sister. The truth needs to be told that had the authorities held Davi Vidal in custody my sister would be alive today. There are other cases like this in our country where people were victimized by migrants. That’s the reality.”
They say that prosecutors are not being transparent about the case and that they have been kept in the dark about how the case is progressing. They also want to know why the DA’s office did not reveal that he had been in the country illegally. Fox News Digital raised those questions with the Queens District Attorney’s Office and received the following statement: “The defendant was indicted and remanded. The case is proceeding at a normal pace.”
Maria Leo says she wants the entire truth to come out.
“We need honesty, no cover-ups, no hiding the facts. I don’t know why all the information about this case was not disclosed from the beginning. Mr. President-elect, my family wants answers,” Maria Leo said.
Vidal Carrillo is now being held at Rikers Island, and ICE officials lodged an immigration detainer against his release with the prison on the same day he was arrested, an ICE official tells Fox News Digital. The New York Post was first to report that Vidal Carrillo is an illegal alien.
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ICE detainers call on local law enforcement to notify the immigration enforcement agency when non-citizens are arrested on criminal charges.
A 2014 City Council law signed by former Mayor Bill de Blasio limited the city’s cooperation with ICE “detainers,” except in certain cases presenting a public safety risk. The NYPD is not allowed to reveal a person’s immigration status to the public under law.
Hiram Monserrate, with the Leo family and local residents (Provided by Hiram Monserrate)
Vidal Carrillo crossed the southern border near San Luis, Arizona, in June 2022 as a 17-year-old before the Border Patrol served him with a notice to appear in court and placed him into removal proceedings, an ICE official tells Fox News Digital.
The family have not been in contact with Ocasio-Cortez, who represents their district, and instead approached Monserrate for help in their quest for justice. Fox News Digital reached out to Ocasio-Cortez’s office for comment regarding Leo’s death but did not immediately receive a response.
The progressive congresswoman has previously called for ICE to be abolished and also suggested that Homeland Security, the umbrella department that oversees ICE, be eliminated.
In a September 2022 video – just three months after Vidal Carrillo entered the U.S. illegally – she said that immigrants and refugees who come to the U.S. are “an enormous blessing.” She has called for a path to citizenship for all illegal immigrants in the U.S.
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“Immigrants and refugees are one of the only reasons why, economically, demographically and socially, the United States even is in any way as prosperous or as accomplished on the broad sense, there’s still distribution issues,” Ocasio-Cortez said, adding that there is no difference between undocumented immigrants arriving in the U.S. today and those who arrived generations ago.
“And that includes undocumented immigrants, by the way, I’m talking about all immigrants,” she said, noting that about half of her district is comprised of immigrants.
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The incident took place in Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s district. Ocasio-Cortez pictured with Rep. Cori Bush at an “asylum is a right” rally. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
Meanwhile, Monserrate says that the Leo family are the quintessential model American family and that Zoraida Leo deserved to live in a safe community.
“They came to the U.S. legally from the Dominican Republic. They worked hard, raised a big family, went to church, bought a house and were civically engaged. America needs more of that. A secure border is a necessity and not a talking point and all parties should work on ensuring that,” Monserrate said at the rally.
“The Leo family and this largely immigrant community is calling upon the President-elect, the Senate Leader and Speaker of the House to end the hyper-partisanship that has ripped this nation apart and maintained a broken immigration system. Let’s fix it. The American people deserve no less.”
