President Joe Biden’s weak border policy claimed a high-profile victim this week following a tragic incident.
An illegal migrant, Elmer Rueda-Linares, 18, has been arrested over a fatal hit-and-run crash that killed Kurt Englehart, state senior adviser to Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV).
On Wednesday, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) reported that Rueda-Linares entered the United States on March 12, 2021, at or near the Rio Grande City, Texas, Port of Entry without inspection by an immigration official.
According to the DHS, the suspect was put on an Immigration and Customs Emergency (ICE) hold in Washoe County Jail on April 8, just two days after the accident.
Rueda-Linares was initially charged with felony hit-and-run, but that charge has been downgraded to a single charge of failing to stop at the scene of an accident.
NEW: ICE says the 18-year-old arrested in connection to the death of an advisor to U.S. Senator Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV) is in the U.S. illegally and was arrested at the Texas border in March 2021, then released into the U.S. in June 2021.https://t.co/HtGyvOjWNa
— Bill Melugin (@BillMelugin_) April 17, 2024
With Rueda-Linares in custody, Cortez Masto paid tribute to Englehart, describing him as a beloved figure across the state.
The senator also described him as a beloved employee who was always eager to help a constituent at a moment’s notice.
“For the past eight years, Kurt proudly served in both my campaign and official offices,” Cortez Masto said. “He touched many lives, and I know almost everyone in Northern Nevada has a great story about Kurt helping them or making them laugh.”
Englehart, a native of Ohio who graduated from Muskingum University in 2015, has served as an aide to the senator since 2017.
He was appointed state senior adviser/rural outreach director last March.
According to Fox News, this incident comes two days after Cortez-Masto claimed that there were “no open borders” over a resurfaced video from March 10, 2021, when Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) reported over 170,000 migrant encounters at the border.
“There’s no open border,” Cortez Masto claimed. “As someone who was attorney general for eight years, my state worked very closely on the border with Mexico. There are no open borders.”