One of the illegal Venezuelan migrants accused of strangling and killing 12-year-old Jocelyn Nungaray in Texas cut the ankle monitor he was given at the border after the slaying, The Post can reveal.
Johan Jose Rangel Martinez, 21, and Franklin Jose Pena Ramos, 26, were both released into the US with GPS monitoring after illegally crossing the southern border into El Paso, Texas this year.
Rangel Martinez, who crossed the border on March 14, was released from the monitoring program on May 15 because he had no known criminal history and had complied with check-ins, sources said.
However, Panos Ramos, who crossed the border on May 28 — less than a month before the shocking murder — removed his ankle monitor two days after Nungaray’s body was found in a swampy creek in Houston on Monday, according to sources.
The two migrants were arrested and charged Thursday with capital murder after they allegedly lured Nungaray away from home, then strangled her and callously dumped her body.
Houston police are still investigating whether she was sexually assaulted.
A former ICE director said it was “unconscionable” that two men from a country with one the highest murder rates in the world are even let into the country before thorough vetting in the first place.
”This tragedy underscores the grave shortcomings in the Biden administration’s use of Alternatives to Detention (ATD),” John Fabbricatore, former Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Denver field office director, told The Post.
“It is unconscionable that young adult males from high-crime areas are placed in these programs instead of being held in custodial detention, prevented from entering illegally or prioritized for removal.
“Many single illegal alien males, like the two charged with this heinous crime, exit the monitoring program within 30 days. Who is that protecting?”
A DHS source added that it is hard to vet the criminal backgrounds of migrants from countries like Venezuela that won’t cooperate with the US.
“They don’t know what these dudes did in Venezuela,” the source said.
Pena Ramos was set to appear in court in July for his immigration case. Rangel Martinez was released by border agents after crossing with a court date in August.
When an ankle monitor is removed by a migrant under surveillance, it can be difficult for ICE to act if the person doesn’t have a known criminal history.
“For the most part, ICE does nothing. It would all be dependent,” a DHS source explained.
“For a non-criminal, they couldn’t get in a car and go look for that guy.”
An ICE spokesperson didn’t respond to The Post’s request for comment.
Investigators believe Jocelyn snuck out of her home around 10 p.m. on Sunday, according to KTRK.
Surveillance footage at a local convenience store then showed the suspects following the girl as she walked into the store.
Her mother, Alexis Nungaray, believes her daughter was taken “advantage of” by her killers, who lured her to her death.
“I’m like angry that they took advantage of her. She was so young,” the grieving mom told KHOU.
ICE officers found Pena Ramos’ ankle monitor in an undisclosed location.
Jocelyn’s body was found the next day by a Houston resident who had been driving by the creek.
At first, the local thought the body was a mannequin, she told KTRK-TV.
“I did a U-turn, and I stopped on the bridge, put my flashers on, looked down, and realized it was someone. I parked right here and called 911 immediately,” she said.
Cops arrested the two Venezuelan migrants at a local apartment complex, where they had been living as roommates.
During the arrest, one of them tried to jump over a balcony to flee the scene, but was unsuccessful, witnesses told local outlet KHOU.
It is unclear if they have any connection to the violent Venezuelan El Tren de Aragua gang.
The tragedy is one of many recent high-profile crimes allegedly committed by illegal migrants.
Last week, an Ecuadorian migrant allegedly raped a 13-year-old girl he bound and gagged in a Queens park.
The suspect, Christian Geovanny Inga-Landi, 25, crossed into Eagle Pass, Texas, in 2021 and was ordered removed by an immigration judge the next year — but never left, The Post previously revealed.
The man arrested this month and charged in the rape and murder of Maryland mom-of-five Rachel Morin is a migrant from El Salvador who crossed illegally into the US three times in two months, was booted, and then made it in undetected on his fourth try.
