The illegal alien convicted of killing 21-year-old Sarah Root in Omaha, Nebraska, the night she graduated from college with a 4.0 GPA has been sentenced to 20 years in prison a decade after she was killed.
This week, Honduran illegal alien Eswin Mejia received a sentence of 20 to 22 years in a Nebraska prison after having been convicted of vehicular homicide and flight to evade arrest.
On January 31, 2016, Mejia was drunk and street racing — going 71 mph — when he rear-ended Root, who was driving at only 3 mph as she was nearly coming to a complete stop.
Root had just graduated from college among the top of her class when she was killed. She would have been 32 years old this May.
US Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump (R) greets Michelle Root during a campaign rally at the Mid-America convention centre in Council Bluffs, Iowa, on September 28, 2016. (JEWEL SAMAD/AFP via Getty Images)
Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem celebrated Mejia’s sentencing, saying in a statement that she is “glad to see some justice for Sarah’s family,” even as “nothing will bring her back.”
“I want to thank Homeland Security Investigations and our interagency law enforcement partners for extraditing Sarah’s killer and bringing him back to the U.S.,” Noem said.
She continued:
I also want to thank Senator Joni Ernst for her advocacy on behalf of Sarah and her family. Sarah should still be here today, and this illegal alien should have never been in our country in the first place. The Trump administration will always put the safety of Americans first.
In January of last year President Donald Trump signed Sarah’s Law, authored by Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA), into federal law. It requires illegal aliens who commit violent crimes to remain detained in police custody.
“The man who murdered my daughter entered the country illegally. He came in as an unaccompanied minor, committed additional crimes, drove while intoxicated, smashed his truck into my daughter, and then ran away after posting a $5,000 bond,” Angel Mom Michelle Root told Congress in 2021.
“His bail was less than what it cost to bury my baby,” Michelle Root said. “He was never convicted. Yes, this happened during the Obama administration when the policy was to catch and release, ignore sanctuary cities, and turn a blind eye to illegal immigration in the interior of our country.”
Before Root’s death, Mejia had been released into the United States interior by the Obama administration after he crossed the southern border.
He was subsequently arrested and charged with killing Root in a drunk driving hit-and-run crash, but released from jail on a small bond and fled the United States for his native Honduras, where he evaded charges for over 8 years.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here.
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