Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., is calling on prosecutors to try, convict and punish the undocumented killer of Stephanie Minter, arguing that he must face American justice before he's ordered to leave the country.
Kaine said he fears deportation could be a form of leniency.
"I'm not sure that if he's deported, [that] he will really face the punishment that he should face. If you do a deportation now, what's the guarantee he would really face severe consequences for what he's done?" Kaine said.
"I think he should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law and then possibly deported after that, but I wouldn't want him to escape accountability for the crime."
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Authorities are charging Abdul Jalloh, a 32-year-old Sierra Leone native, with the murder of Stephanie Minter after authorities found her dead at a bus stop in Fairfax, Virginia last month.
Jalloh had already been arrested more than 30 times before his fatal confrontation with Minter, according to the Department of Homeland Security. Among others, his previous charges included rape, malicious wounding, assault, drug possession, identity theft, trespassing and more.
Local authorities dropped previous charges against Jalloh, allowing him to walk free.
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Kaine believes this time should be different.
"I think he should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law and then possibly deported after that," Kaine said.
Jalloh has been charged with second-degree murder.
Even as questions remain about why Virginia authorities let Jalloh go, Kaine, who served as governor of Virginia from 2006 to 2010, posited that ICE may have failed to follow through on requests to detain Jalloh ahead of Minter's murder.
"My experience when I was governor - and this is now 15 or 20 years ago - is that we would normally let ICE know before we let anybody out of prison in Virginia, and then they wouldn't show up," Kaine said.
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"We would give them two weeks' notice [and say] 'Hey, here's somebody who's here, come pick them up,' and they wouldn't show up. That was more my experience."
Fox Digital reached out to the Department of Homeland Security for comment.
