Angel Mom Mary Ann Mendoza says she is “offended” by Mollie Tibbetts’ father’s effort to racialize the issue of illegal immigration, without acknowledging the “illegal alien criminal problem.”

Mendoza — whose 32-year-old son, police officer Brandon Mendoza, was killed by a drunk illegal alien in Mesa, Arizona — made the remarks on SiriusXM Patriot’s Breitbart News Daily with Breitbart News Editor-in-Chief Alex Marlow.

As Breitbart News noted, Tibbetts’ father wrote a highly publicized op-ed where he decried calls for more immigration enforcement following his daughter’s murder at the alleged hands of an illegal alien, writing, “Do not appropriate Mollie’s soul in advancing views she believed were profoundly racist.”

Illegal alien Cristhian Bahena-Rivera, a 24-year-old from Mexico, has been charged with first-degree murder in Tibbetts’ death after police say he admitted to confronting and chasing down Tibbetts. The illegal alien lived in a region of Iowa that was surrounded by sanctuary cities, as Breitbart News noted, and an initial autopsy report revealed that Bahena-Rivera allegedly stabbed Tibbetts to death.

In response, Mendoza said the issue of illegal alien crime is one not based on race or nationality, but rather illegal and legal status of foreign nationals in the United States:

I’m actually offended that a fellow American parent, Mollie’s dad, wants to act like this is not an illegal alien criminal problem in our country. You cannot keep ignoring the fact. I will keep talking about who killed Mollie Tibbetts. I don’t have to mention her name, but I am going to keep fighting for her memory and make sure that there isn’t another Mollie Tibbetts tomorrow that happens. [Emphasis added] This is what the liberals want to try and do and make you feel like you are wrong for mentioning this. This is not a racial issue. Illegal aliens come from all over the world. They are people who are unlawfully present in our country and we need to start this conversation and everybody needs to feel as comfortable as I do talking about it. [Emphasis added]

Likewise, Angel Mom Vicki Lyon — whose daughter Nikki was killed by a now-fugitive illegal alien in a car crash in 2001 — said her raising awareness about illegal alien crime is to help bring justice to victims who are largely ignored by regional, statewide, and national lawmakers as well as the establishment media.

“This is not a racial issue. It is illegal,” Lyon said. “We have illegals from everywhere, every country. When you make it racial, you want to divide. We don’t want to divide. It’s law and order.”

“That’s what we want to do. We want to bring justice to every victim, every child, every loved one who has been affected by this,” Lyon continued. “There are so many that there is no justice for them, there is no sentencing. We have a friend whose husband and two children were killed and … the illegal alien only got a two-year sentence for killing people.”

Listen to the Angel Moms’ full interview (audio-only) here:

Breitbart News Daily broadcasts live on SiriusXM Patriot Channel 125 from 6:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. Eastern.