A Republican representative accuses a charity of helping the immigrant who allegedly murdered a student in Georgia enter the country

The Covenant House organization appears as the “sponsor address” of José Ibarra, a Venezuelan immigrant accused of murdering a Georgia nursing student last week, according to legislator Lance Gooden (R-TX).

According to Gooden, who sent a letter to the executive director of the nonprofit charity, Bill Bedrossian, documents from the United States Customs and Border Protection (CBP) show that José Ibarra, after crossing illegally into El Paso, “provided The Covenant House, a federally funded NGO in New York, as his sponsor address.”

“These NGOs receive hundreds of millions in taxpayer funding per year through a left-wing loophole designed to circumvent a federal law that prevents tax dollars from funding illegal immigration,” Gooden wrote.

“I have been fighting to hold NGOs like Covenant House accountable for years. Their usage of federal funds to traffic millions of migrants is unacceptable and has now become deadly,” said the Republican representative.

However, in a statement sent to Fox News Digital, the organization denied ties to José Ibarra.

“Covenant House does not sponsor the entry of any migrants into the United States. It is neither a policy nor a practice. Covenant House New York did not sponsor Jose Antonio Ibarra’s entry into the country and has not done so for any other person,” said a spokesperson for the organization. “We do not know how our address came to be on his form, but there have been and continue to be instances when our address is given at the border. We have not been contacted by ICE/DHS regarding this matter.”

Ibarra, who crossed the country illegally in September 2022, allegedly murdered student Laken Riley last Thursday on the University of Georgia (UGA) campus.

The young woman died due to blunt force trauma to the head while doing her exercise routine, authorities reported. Her classmates reported that Riley never returned from a morning run.

After crossing the border in 2022, Ibarra went to New York City, where he lived for a time with his wife, and then moved to Georgia, where he lived on the edge of the UGA campus for months, reported neighbors in the area.

ICE confirmed to several national media outlets that Ibarra had been found by Customs and Border Protection (CBP) on September 8, 2022. Likewise, the agency also confirmed that the Venezuelan immigrant had been arrested by the New York Police Department a year later, in September 2023, and had been “charged with acting in a manner to injure a child less than 17 and a motor vehicle license violation.”

José Antonio Ibarra’s older brother, Diego Ibarra, was also charged with fraud for submitting false papers and could face ten years in prison, according to the Department of Justice.