On January 31, 2016, the night of her graduation, Sarah Root, a twenty-one year-old Council Bluffs woman, was struck and killed in Omaha by a drunk driver, Edwin Mejia.
Mejia had entered the country illegally and was driving drunk, three times over the legal limit.
Thursday, on the third anniversary of her death, U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa joined Senator Joni Ernst in reintroducing legislation in honor of Sarah, to allow federal law enforcement to detain illegal immigrants criminally charged with killing or seriously injuring another person.
Senators Deb Fischer and Ben Sasse of Nebraska also cosponsored the legislation.
Ernst says we have an obligation to the Root family, and to the American people, to ensure that no person falls victim to this injustice again.
She says Sarah’s Law brings us one step closer to restoring justice in our broken immigration system by allowing ICE to detain and hold these criminals accountable.
Following state criminal charges of motor vehicle homicide and outreach by local law enforcement, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) used its discretion to decline to issue a detainer on Edwin Mejia.
Mejia posted bond, disappeared and now, three years later, still remains at-large.
