ATHENS, Ga. — Jason Riley, the father of slain nursing student Laken Riley, spoke out in an interview for the first time since his daughter's death -- telling NBC News he feels her death has been used politically and that it makes him "angry."
"I feel like, you know, they're just using my daughter’s name for that," Riley told NBC's Priscilla Thompson in an interview that aired Monday on TODAY. "She was much better than that. She should be raised up for the person that she is."
Jason Riley, Laken's biological father, told NBC his daughter was a marathon runner with dreams of being a nurse and working with children.
"She was like an angel," he said.
Laken's death has become a national political flashpoint in the debate on immigration and border security, with former President Donald Trump highlighting it in comments at the border and at his rallies.
President Joe Biden referenced Laken's killing at the State of the Union after pressure from conservatives who have blamed Riley's death on immigration policies. Meanwhile Latino activists and advocates for undocumented immigrants have spoken out about increasingly stigmatizing rhetoric surrounding the debate.
Riley's accused killer Jose Ibarra is from Venezuela and entered the United States illegally in 2022, according to federal authorities.
Trump met with Laken's mother, stepfather and siblings, and posed for a widely-circulated photo before his rally earlier this month in Rome, according to NBC. They were welcomed with a standing ovation and large signs handed out by the campaign that featured Riley’s photograph and the words “SAY HER NAME!” “REMEMBER OUR ANGELS,” they read on the back.
“We share your grief," Trump told them in his remarks.
"I'd rather her not be such a political, how you say — it started a storm in our country," Jason Riley told NBC. "And it's incited a lot of people."
The father did not entirely shy away from the question of immigration policy, however, telling NBC when asked if different policies would have made a difference that he has "no idea if that would've changed anything" but that Ibarra, the accused killer, "might not have been here had we had secure borders."
"Laken has been a rallying cry for secure borders and for the illegal immigration policies of this current administration, but there's many women we don't get to hear about," he added in his comments to NBC.
Riley's father told the network he wishes he had been there to protect her.
"I wish it would have been me," he said.
"Se was so full of life," he added. "I just hate that she was taken so early."
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