Killing of Texas Girl Becomes a New Immigration Flashpoint

The killing of a 12-year-old Houston girl, found last week in the shallow water of a city drainage ditch after having been strangled, was already a horrific crime.

“It doesn’t get any worse,” the city’s mayor, John Whitmire, said.

Then investigators arrested two recent Venezuelan migrants and charged them with killing the girl, Jocelyn Nungaray. The second of the two appeared in court on Tuesday; both were being held on a $10 million bond.

Suddenly the killing, which had ripped apart a Houston family, became the latest flashpoint in the debate over immigration, seized on by Republicans and immigration opponents who drew a direct line between the crime and President Biden’s policies at the border.

Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas urged the death penalty for the men charged in the killing, adding that Jocelyn “would be alive today if Biden enforced immigration laws at the border.” Senator Ted Cruz of Texas agreed. So did former President Donald J. Trump.

Mr. Trump invoked Jocelyn’s name in a speech in Washington over the weekend, suggesting that the killing could resurface during Thursday’s presidential debate, which is expected to include immigration as a central topic.

“These monsters should never have been in our country and if I were president, they would not have been in our country,” Mr. Trump said. “We had a strong border, we had strong protection.”