A retired teacher is organizing a “Make Athens Safe Again” rally in the Georgia college town where nursing student Laken Riley was murdered last month, allegedly by a Venezuelan migrant.
Laurie Camp organized the protest — the name of which is a play on Donald Trump’s slogan “Make America Great Again” — to take place at an evening meeting of the Athens-Clarke County Commission, which she accused of allowing the college town to become a “sanctuary city” in defiance of Georgia’s anti-sanctuary laws.
“I started it because I was angry,” Camp told the Athens Banner-Herald. “I thought maybe 30 people may show, but the next thing you know, it’s snowballed into a new movement.”
She organized the rally to encourage community members to criticize officials’ priorities in the wake of the high-profile murder.
“They feel that they are going to be shamed. They feel that they are going to be labeled as white supremacists,” she said on Fox News’ “Fox & Friends” Tuesday of many members of the liberal community.
She added: “My expectations, I’m hoping that a lot of people who have always been fearful of speaking their mind and for speaking their truth, I’m hoping they will come out today to show our local government that we are tired of being silenced.”
Laken was bludgeoned to death while jogging on the the University of Georgia campus on Feb. 22.
Jose Antonio Ibarra, 26, was arrested a day after the 22-year-old’s body was discovered near a wooded area surrounding an on-campus lake.
The asylum seeker had entered the US via El Paso, Texas, in September 2022 and was released from a detention center due to overcrowding before making his way to New York City, where he had been arrested for endangering a 5-year-old child, police sources confirmed.
Clark County, which operates as a unified government with Athens, is designated a sanctuary jurisdiction by the Center for Immigration Studies, based on Sheriff John Williams’ policy of not cooperating with US Immigration and Customs Enforcement without a “court order or warrant.”
Local residents are furious over the policy in the wake of Riley’s murder, Camp said.
Start your day with all you need to know
Morning Report delivers the latest news, videos, photos and more.
Thanks for signing up!
“We have been told that the DA will not prosecute, we have been told that they will not detain,” she said.
More than 500 people have reportedly expressed interest in attending the rally, according to Camp.
“I have had lots and lots of messages and phone calls, etcetera, thanking me for speaking out, because they are too afraid to,” she said.
Clark County officials responded to a Post inquiry by providing its policy for treating “foreign nationals …in the manner provided for under international law and treaty when detained.
