Back in November of 2020, an altercation broke out between two men in a parking lot in North Houston.
One of the men got into a car, which was being driven by 19-year-old Adrienne Sophia Exum.
Exum speed off, unrestrained & her car door wide open. Investigators say Heriberto Fuerte-Padilla, an illegal immigrant, drove his pickup truck into Exum’s car.
Sheriff Ed Gonzales said “[She was] ejected out of the vehicle into the roadway. Her head struck the roadway and she sustained a significant injury where she ended up dying on the scene."
Fuerte-Padilla tried to flee the scene, but police caught up with him.
DHS initially said it wanted authorities to pick him up and deport him once Texas punished him, but then it changed its mind.
Under rules issued in September by Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, Fuerte-Padilla doesn’t qualify as a priority anymore.
The Washington Times reports that:
“U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement also told Texas that it was canceling deportation requests — known as “detainers” — on other illegal immigrants, including some who pleaded guilty to felony charges of evading arrest or had convictions for drunken driving, drug possession or domestic assault injuring a family member.
In each case, ICE told Texas in emails that the detainers were canceled as “priority lifts.” They were no longer important targets under Mr. Mayorkas’ rules. “Here we have a law enforcement agency handing ICE a criminal alien on a silver platter and ICE saying no thank you, and then the law enforcement agency saying really? And ICE saying no, we really don’t want to take this person,” said Jessica Vaughan, policy studies director at the Center for Immigration Studies. Cases were revealed in documents filed in federal court in Texas, where Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry are challenging Mr. Mayorkas’ rules. The two states said they have plenty of other examples of canceled detainers they will introduce as the case goes to trial in late February.”
The victim’s mother, Rhonda Exum says "by him not being deported, it’s like you telling me my daughter’s life didn’t mean anything."