A Westfield Democrat fired back at U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan, an Ohio Republican who chairs the House Judiciary Committee, for an inquiry he started. an inquiry the congressman launched into a Haitian national accused of raping a migrant girl at a Massachusetts shelter last week.
During a Thursday debate on a bill that in part looks to fund state-run shelters in Massachusetts serving migrants and local residents, state Sen. John Velis criticized Jordan for seeking information on Cory Alvarez, 26, who allegedly raped a 15-year-old disabled girl in Rockland, according to court documents.
“I read the newspaper the other day, I think it was the Boston Herald, where I saw that one member of Congress is going to be investigating something that happened here in Massachusetts. And I chuckled, and I laughed,” Velis said from the floor of the state Senate.
The Westfield Democrat said it was “comical” and “disgusting” for a federal lawmaker who opposed a bipartisan immigration deal in Washington to wade into an individual state’s issues with immigration.
“For a federal official, whose job it is to solve the immigration crisis … to pass on some type of a bipartisan immigration bill, and then to not do anything, and then because of that inaction, kind of look at states and then say you’re gonna launch an investigation, I just find it’s comical. To me, it just speaks to how unserious Washington has become,” he told the Herald.
Jordan and U.S. Rep. Tom McClintock, a California Republican, called on the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to release a range of case files on Alvarez in their “continued oversight of federal immigration policy and procedures.”
“Criminal aliens exploit vulnerabilities in our nation’s immigration system to the detriment of those in the United States. The Biden administration’s border and immigration policies only increase the likelihood that criminal aliens will successfully enter and remain in the U.S.,” the pair wrote in a letter addressed to U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.
The two federal legislators are looking for the time, date, and place of “any and all of the alien’s entries into the United States,” forms documenting any financial support Alvarez received from U.S.-based sponsors, his immigration history, benefit applications, immigration detention details, and other immigration records.
Jordan and McClintock also want information about Alvarez’s processing by federal border officials, including if they were “alerted to derogatory information about the alien and what questions were asked of the alien during the screening process,” according to the letter.
Alvarez legally entered the United States through New York in June 2023 and was vetted by both federal and state officials, according to Gov. Maura Healey and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Alvarez has pleaded not guilty to a charge of aggravated rape of a child with a ten year age different and is being held in prison without bail pending the outcome of a dangerousness hearing scheduled for Friday.
Velis stated that Alvarez's supposed actions are completely unacceptable and said he should be punished to the severest extent of the law.
However, he mentioned that Washington has not taken action on immigration.
"There is a great opportunity for Washington, both parties to come together and say, let's solve this problem. And they missed it," Velis expressed. "Now, we are dealing with the consequences with money that we do not have and we are seeing what that disorder is leading to."
