Deirdre Shesgreen

DSHESGREEN@USATODAY.COM

WASHINGTON — A Missouri widow on Wednesday told lawmakers in terrifying detail how she hid in her attic, “scared out of my mind,” as her husband was murdered by a Mexican immigrant in the U.S. illegally--adding a powerful personal voice to the heated debate over illegal immigration.

“In the 18 months before the senseless murder of my husband, this killer has been in custody on three occasions, yet federal officials failed to detain or deport him,” Julie Nordman, of Wentzville, told the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee during a hearing on “lax immigration enforcement.”

“Had they just done their jobs and followed the laws, my husband would still be alive, and so would the four other innocent victims he brutally murdered,” Nordman told the committee.

After Nordman’s gripping testimony, Sen. Claire McCaskill, the top Democrat on the committee, blasted the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, which refused to send anyone to testify at Wednesday’s hearing.

“It’s unfortunate they’re not here today to apologize to you at a minimum,” McCaskill, D-Mo., told Nordman, “… to look at you and say ‘I’m sorry’ and to acknowledge the failures of that agency.”

The GOP chairman of the committee, Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, promised Nordman that the committee would get answers to her questions about why immigration officials did not take her husband’s alleged murderer into custody before he went on his killing spree, despite several arrests by local law enforcement officials.

“You have the commitment of this committee ... to get you answers,” Johnson said, telling Nordman that her testimony “will make a difference.”

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In a letter responding to McCaskill’s request for testimony, ICE officials said the acting director, Thomas Homan, had a prior commitment. A spokesman for McCaskill said the senator asked if another ICE official could come in Homan’s place but were told that no one else was available.

Nordman’s husband, Randy Nordman, was killed last March at the couple’s house near New Florence. Prosecutors have charged Pablo Antonio Serrano-Vitorino, a Mexican man who was in the U.S. illegally, with Nordman’s murder. Serrano-Vitorino has also been charged with killing four men at his neighbor’s house in Kansas, the day before he allegedly shot Nordman.

As Nordman recounted at Wednesday’s session, Serrano-Vitorino was deported in 2004 but he later reentered the U.S. illegally. In the two years before he killed her husband, Nordman testified, he was arrested three times—for driving while intoxicated, for domestic battery, and for driving without a license. She said Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials repeatedly failed to act when notified by local law enforcement officials that Serrano-Vitorino was in custody.

In one instance, she said, “ICE mistakenly sent the detainer paperwork to the incorrect location, and it never reached the proper authorities.”

As a result of that failure, “he went on to kill five completely innocent men,” Nordman said. “Not only has ICE failed us, but our borders have failed us. They are obviously wide open as this man was able to enter, not once, but twice, without being detected.”

Nordman’s testimony comes as Congress opens a divisive debate over immigration, sparked by President Donald Trump’s push to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexican border and his expanded efforts to deport undocumented immigrants.

Trump used his first joint address to Congress on Tuesday night to highlight violent crimes committed by undocumented immigrants. Many Republicans have embraced Trump’s hardline immigration rhetoric and policies, while some Democrats have accused the president of stirring up fear and hatred toward immigrants.

McCaskill said lawmakers need to fully understand the current failures of the immigration system before passing any new legislation or building Trump’s proposed border wall. She seemed wary of a possible crackdown on refugees fleeing violence in Central America.

ICE should prioritize detaining immigrants with a criminal record, McCaskill said, and “maybe not the children who are showing up at our border saying 'Please help me'.”

Nordman did not offer a specific fix for the crime that tore apart her life.

“I want to make sure this doesn’t happen to somebody else,” she told the committee. “I want the laws strengthened or changed ... That’s all.”