My son was murdered by an illegal immigrant. Neither he nor Mollie Tibbetts deserved to die. I don't need to imagine Mollie Tibbetts' parents' pain — I live with it every day. Until Congress enforces immigration law, so will other parents.

Agnes Gibboney | Opinion contributor

Show Caption Hide Caption Undocumented immigrant confesses killing Iowa student Mollie Tibbetts Police are charging a Mexican immigrant with first-degree murder in the death of 20-year-old Mollie Tibbetts. She went missing on July 18 while jogging in her hometown of Brooklyn, Iowa.

When what we all feared was finally confirmed, that Mollie Tibbetts, a promising 20-year-old college student, had indeed been killed, we all imagined the pain that Rob Tibbetts and Laura Calderwood, Mollie’s parents, must have felt.

I didn’t have to imagine their pain. I experienced it myself 16 years ago when my son, Ronald Da Silva, was murdered, and I have been living with it every day since. Another thing I share with Rob and Laura is the gut-wrenching knowledge that our grief was entirely avoidable.

Like Ronald, Mollie was apparently murdered by an illegal immigrant. We don’t know all the details about Cristhian Bahena Rivera, Mollie’s alleged killer, but we know he was here because our government neglected its responsibility to keep him out.

Like my son’s murderer, there were probably numerous opportunities at which Rivera’s illegal presence could have been determined and acted upon. Instead of officials catching him using a false ID card and Social Security number, government at all levels apparently failed to see the obvious until it was too late for Mollie and her family.

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The apologists for illegal immigrants will no doubt tell us that the vast majority of illegal immigrants are not violent criminals, and they are right. But that’s not the point. They are all violating laws that exist to protect the best interests of the American people, which is reason enough to enforce our immigration laws. The fact that my son, Mollie, Kate Steinle, Sarah Root and many more whose names never made the headlines are dead is all the more reason why our immigration laws must be enforced.

When will Congress enforce our laws?

Much like the parents of children who have been gunned down in a string of recent school shootings, those of us who have needlessly lost loved ones at the hands of illegal immigrants utterly reject the “thoughts and prayers” of the political class that continues to turn a blind eye to mass illegal immigration. We demand action. We know that there is no such thing as absolute security, but we also know that there are reasonable steps that can and must be taken to minimize the possibility that others will be victimized.

In 2006, Congress overwhelmingly authorized construction of a security fence along our southern border. Among those who voted for the wall were then-Sens. Barack Obama, D-Ill., Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., and current Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.

Ten years later, Donald Trump ran and was elected on a pledge to fulfill that promise to the American people. Congress owes it to Ronald, Mollie and other victims to fully fund this vital security barrier now with no strings attached. We should not have to reward any group of illegal immigrants with amnesty in order to get our government to prevent more illegal immigrants from entering.

While Congress refuses to provide the American people with a border security wall, hundreds of sanctuary jurisdictions around the country provide illegal immigrants with a virtual wall that effectively shields them from being identified and removed from the country. These jurisdictions, which include my home state of California, actively impede the identification and removal of illegal immigrants – including criminal illegal immigrants. In New York, Gov. Andrew Cuomo has made 34 immigration-related pardons since 2011, often for the expressed purpose of preventing them from being deported.

We must also hold illegal immigrants accountable for their actions, even those who do not commit violent crimes in our country. The advocates for illegal immigrants ask us to understand why people come to this country illegally. We understand. But there is an important difference between understanding and condoning, which is what the economic and political elite whose communities, jobs, schools, and lives are largely unaffected by mass illegal immigration demand of the rest of us.

Criminals must pay a price

What the American people — particularly those of us who have paid the ultimate price for our nation’s unenforced immigration laws — demand is accountability from people who break our laws and from our elected officials.

Whenever people violate laws and are punished, there are inevitably consequences for their family members. These consequences often result in them being separated from their families. But, in all other circumstances, we hold the lawbreakers responsible for the effects of their actions on their families. The same must be true for people violate immigration laws.

Mollie didn’t violate any laws and neither did my son Ronald. And yet, because of a lack of accountability on the part of illegal immigrants and elected officials who are sworn to uphold our laws, Mollie and Ronald are permanently separated from their families (and us from them) by six feet of dirt. This must stop now.

Protecting the interests and security of the American people must be the first priority for federal, state, and local officials, not a bargaining chip for amnesty for illegal immigrants. It won’t bring Ronald back to me, or Mollie back to her parents, but it will ensure that other families are spared our grief.

Agnes Gibboney is a legal immigrant from Hungary whose only son, Ronald da Silva, was murdered by an illegal immigrant in 2002. Agnes is a member of Angel Families.