THE CONSEQUENCES OF THE BIDEN-HARRIS ADMINISTRATION’S

OPEN-BORDERS POLICIES: THE CASE OF THE ILLEGAL ALIEN WHO

BRUTALLY ASSAULTED A TEENAGE GIRL IN ALABAMA

Interim Staff Report of the

Committee on the Judiciary

and
Subcommittee on Immigration Integrity, Security, and Enforcement

U.S. House of Representatives

August 28, 2024

 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

In less than four years, the Biden-Harris Administration’s open-borders, no-consequence

immigration policies have allowed millions of illegal aliens to pour into the United States,
including more than 5.6 million illegal aliens that the Administration has released into American
communities. 1 At the same time, according to publicly available information, at least 1.9 million
illegal alien known “gotaways” have escaped into the country. 2 In other words, in addition to the
5.6 million illegal aliens that the Administration has knowingly let into the country, almost two
million more illegal aliens have evaded authorities and slipped in unseen.

Since 2021, under the Biden-Harris Administration, the Department of Homeland

Security (DHS) has discontinued its practice of providing estimates of unknown “gotaways,”
despite the fact that current law requires the annual public reporting of such estimates. 3 The
Committee on the Judiciary has repeatedly asked DHS for the number of known and unknown
“gotaways” during the Biden-Harris Administration, but DHS has failed to produce the total
number. When questioned regarding the number of illegal alien “gotaways” during testimony
before Congress, former Chief of the Border Patrol Raul Ortiz stated that the actual number of
“gotaways” is “between 10 and 20 percent” percent higher than the total “gotaways” reported. 4
Therefore, the Committee estimates the total number of “gotaways” could be as high as 2.2
million under the Biden-Harris Administration. 5

The stark number of “gotaways” evading Border Patrol during the last three-and-a-half
years is also alarming given the Biden-Harris Administration’s open-borders policies that
facilitate record-high numbers of illegal alien releases. Describing the threat and potential
motivations of illegal alien “gotaways,” former Chief of the Border Patrol Rodney Scott testified
before the Committee:

1
Information provided to the H. Comm. on the Judiciary by U.S. Dep’t of Homeland Sec., Table 1: Detention
Histories of CBP Encounters, January 20, 2021 – March 31, 2024 (Aug. 16, 2024); U.S. Customs and Border Prot.,
Custody and Transfer Statistics FY 2024, U.S. DEP’T OF HOMELAND SEC. (last accessed Aug. 19, 2024); Camilo
Montoya-Galvez, Biden administration has admitted more than 1 million migrants into U.S. under parole policy
Congress is considering restricting, CBS NEWS (Jan. 22, 2024); Latest UC Data, Total Monthly Discharges to
Individual Sponsors Only, U.S. DEP’T OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVS. (last accessed Mar. 22, 2024); Off. of
Refugee Resettlement, Unaccompanied Children Released to Sponsors by State, U.S. DEP’T OF HEALTH AND HUMAN
SERVS. (last accessed Aug. 19, 2024); U.S. Customs and Border Prot., CBP Releases July 2024 Monthly Update,
U.S. DEP’T OF HOMELAND SEC. (Aug. 16, 2024); Immigr. and Customs Enf’t, Daily SWB Placemat, U.S. DEP’T OF
HOMELAND SEC. (May–July 2024) (on file with Comm.); Off. of Homeland Sec. Statistics, Immigr. Enf’t and Legal
Processes Monthly Tables – Apr. 2024, U.S. DEP’T OF HOMELAND SEC. (last accessed Aug. 19, 2024).
2
Casey Harper, Border crisis creates national security threat for U.S., observers say, WASH. EXAMINER (Aug. 7,
2023); Bill Melugin (@BillMelugin_), X (June 20, 2024, 10:22 AM).
3
See 6 U.S.C. § 223(b)(1)(A).
4
Failure By Design: Examining Secretary Mayorkas’ Border Crisis: Hearing Before the H. Comm. on Homeland
Sec., 118th Cong. (2023) (statement of Raul Ortiz, ret. Chief, U.S. Border Patrol).
5
Information produced to the Committee by DHS shows that between fiscal years 2021 and 2023, there have been
1,664,203 known “gotaways.” See information provided to the H. Comm. on the Judiciary by U.S. Dep’t of
Homeland Sec. (May 6, 2024) (on file with Comm.). Press reports further indicate that there have been at least
194,067 known illegal alien “gotaways” in fiscal year 2024 as of June 20, 2024, for a total of 1,858,270 known
“gotaways” during the Biden Administration. See Melugin, supra note 2. Accordingly, Committee estimates show
that as many as 2,229,924 illegal alien “gotaways” may have occurred during the Biden-Harris Administration if
unknown “gotaways” are accounted for.

1
 Cartels use illegal aliens to overwhelm law enforcement [and] create
controllable gaps in border security that they then exploit to bring in
anything they want. To think [] well-resourced terrorist networks
and hostile nations are not exploiting this same vulnerability is
naive.

Prioritizing immigration processing over enforcement also means

that the agents are spread so thin when they are deployed that even
when they detect an illegal entry they are not always able to interdict
it. These events are reported by the Border Patrol as known
[“]gotaways[”]. But it is also important to know that this does not
encompass the total [“]gotaways[”]. The hundreds of miles of border
that are left unpatrolled on a daily or weekly basis now and that lack
persistent surveillance we have no idea [who or] what is cross[ing]
in those areas. 6

Every community in the country suffers from the consequences of the Biden-Harris
border crisis and the Biden-Harris Administration’s lack of immigration enforcement. With
illegal aliens released by the Biden-Harris Administration committing crimes across the country,
every American community has become a border community.

The Biden-Harris Administration’s radical policies ensure that criminal illegal aliens can
remain in the United States indefinitely, even after they have committed a crime. As the
Committee documented in an April 2024 report, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement
(ICE) has instructed its officers to first consider irrelevant factors such as an illegal alien’s high
blood pressure, diabetes, caregiver status, and other “mitigating factors” before ever arresting a
criminal alien. 7 Consequently, the Biden-Harris Administration is removing from the country far
fewer criminal aliens than the Trump Administration. For example, “in fiscal year 2023, ICE
removed 41 percent fewer aliens with criminal convictions and criminal charges than in fiscal
year 2020—and nearly 60 percent fewer than in fiscal year 2019.” 8 As a result, the number of
criminal aliens free in the United States totaled more than 617,000 by December 2023—and is
likely growing daily because of the border crisis. 9

Since February 2023, the Committee has requested information, including alien files (A-
files)—DHS records that contain immigration case history about individual aliens—relating to
illegal aliens who have committed serious and violent crimes in the United States during the
Biden-Harris Administration. In some cases, due to the Administration’s refusal to disclose
information about these criminal illegal aliens, the Committee has been forced to issue

6
Biden Border Crisis Part III: Hearing Before the Subcomm. on Immigr. Integrity, Security, and Enf’t, before the H.
Comm. on the Judiciary, 118th Cong. (2023) at 25 (statement of Rodney Scott, ret. Chief, U.S. Border Patrol).
7
See H. Comm. on the Judiciary, Interim Staff Rep., How the Biden Admin.’s Lax Immigr. Enf’t Allows Dangerous
Criminal Aliens to Run Free in American Communities, at 10-13 (Apr. 16, 2024).
8
See H. Comm. on the Judiciary, Interim Staff Rep., New Data Reveal Worsening Magnitude of the Biden Border
Crisis and Lack of Interior Immigr. Enf’t, at 9 (Jan. 18, 2024).
9
Id. at 9.

2
subpoenas. To date, DHS has provided the Committee with A-files relating to roughly 30
criminal aliens.

The information obtained by the Committee shows in stark terms the real-world
consequences of the Biden-Harris Administration’s failure to secure the border and enforce
immigration law. Taken as a whole, the Committee’s investigation into the criminal illegal aliens
the Biden-Harris Administration has allowed to enter the United States exposes the widespread
failure to adequately vet, apprehend, detain, and remove illegal aliens. In some cases, the illegal
aliens had committed crimes in their home countries but were nevertheless released from DHS
custody. In other cases, the illegal aliens had criminal records or were gang members and were
still released into the United States. In all cases, the illegal aliens went on to commit crimes in
American communities ranging from murder and robbery to brutal assault.

In 2017, then-Senator Kamala Harris asserted that “an undocumented immigrant is not a
criminal” 10 and mocked any plans to remove illegal aliens from the United States. 11 Contrary to
the border czar’s claims, many of the illegal aliens allowed to enter the United States under Vice
President Harris’s watch are criminals who victimized Americans and terrorized U.S.
communities. This interim staff report focuses on the case of just one criminal illegal alien, Grevi
Rivera Zavala, and highlights the open-borders policies of the Biden-Harris Administration that
allowed him to escape into the United States. Rivera Zavala attempted to enter the United States
at least once in 2021 but was expelled to Mexico. 12 He later entered the country without
apprehension, as one of the roughly two million known “gotaways” who have crossed into the
United States due to the Biden-Harris Administration’s chaos at the southwest border. 13 Although
ICE lodged a detainer against the illegal alien following his arrest by police in Prattville,
Alabama, on May 13, 2023, it was only after the Committee’s May 24, 2023, letter that ICE
confirmed with the U.S. embassy in Honduras that Rivera Zavala had a prior criminal record in
his country of origin—a domestic violence arrest in December 2020. 14

10
Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris), X (Apr. 21, 2017, 7:38 PM),
https://x.com/KamalaHarris/status/855566507526565888.
11
Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris), X (Apr. 21, 2017, 7:39 PM),
https://x.com/KamalaHarris/status/855566707729027072.
12
See infra notes 24-25.
13
See infra note 25.
14
See infra note 30.

3
 THE CASE OF CRIMINAL ILLEGAL ALIEN GREVI GEOVANNI RIVERA ZAVALA

For more than three-and-a-half years, President Joe Biden and “border czar” Vice
President Kamala Harris have orchestrated the largest mass release of illegal aliens into the
country in American history. Well over 7 million illegal aliens are now in the United States
because of the Biden-Harris Administration’s radical immigration policies. 15 The results are all
too predictable: cities overwhelmed, public services crushed, and communities shattered by the
criminality of some illegal aliens.

Although the Biden-Harris Administration claims that illegal aliens are vetted before
being released into the United States, the reality is much more disturbing. As one federal district
court judge has observed, the checks that DHS currently performs on illegal aliens encountered
at the southwest border should concern every American. As Judge Wetherell explained in 2023:

Although DHS says it is screening arriving aliens . . . to determine

if they are a public safety threat, the more persuasive evidence
establishes that DHS cannot reliably make that determination.
Indeed, according to [the Administration’s] own witnesses, DHS has
no way to determine if an alien has a criminal history in his home
country unless that country reports the information to the U.S.
government or the alien self-reports. Therefore, DHS is mainly only
screening aliens at the border to determine if they have previously
committed a crime in the United States, and because many of these
aliens are coming to the United States for the first time, DHS has no
idea whether they have criminal histories or not. 16

Indeed, the biometric and biographic data of illegal aliens, including that of the millions
of illegal aliens who have entered the U.S. during the Biden-Harris Administration, are only
vetted against U.S. criminal databases, such as the National Crime Information Center (NCIC),
and against INTERPOL information. 17 Immigration authorities do not vet illegal aliens against
databases in the aliens’ countries of origin. 18 As a result, if there is derogatory information about
an alien in that alien’s home country, the current checks are unlikely to reveal it. As former
Border Patrol Chief Rodney Scott testified to the Subcommittee on Immigration Integrity,
Security, and Enforcement in 2023, the U.S. government has “very, very minuscule data”
available when an alien arrives at the southwest border because “[c]rimes committed by a foreign
national outside the U.S. rarely appear in [U.S.] databases.” 19

The consequences are dire, with illegal aliens committing crimes against Americans at an
alarming rate. Since the beginning of the 118th Congress, Chairman Jim Jordan and

15
See supra notes 1-2.
16
Florida v. United States, 660 F.Supp.3d 1239, 1259 (N.D. Fla. 2023).
17
The Biden Border Crisis: Part III: Hearing Before the Subcomm. on Immigr. Integrity, Security, and Enf’t, of the
H. Comm. on the Judiciary, 118th Cong. 62 (2023) (statement of Rodney Scott).
18
Id.
19
Terrorist Entry Through the Sw. Border: Hearing Before the Subcomm. on Immigr. Integrity, Security, and Enf’t, of
the H. Comm. on the Judiciary, 118th Cong. 45 (2023) (statement of Rodney Scott).

4
Subcommittee Chairman Tom McClintock have requested files and information related to dozens
of illegal aliens who have committed violent and serious crimes during the Biden-Harris
Administration. This report focuses on just one of the millions of illegal aliens allowed entry into
the United States by the Biden-Harris Administration: Grevi Geovanni Rivera Zavala.

Illegal Alien Grevi Geovanni Rivera Zavala Brutally Assaulted a Teenage Girl in Alabama.

According to press reports, Grevi Geovanni Rivera Zavala, an illegal alien from
Honduras, assaulted a teenage girl in Prattville, Alabama, in May 2023. 20 Following these
reports, on May 24, 2023, the Committee on the Judiciary sent a letter to DHS requesting all case
history information for the alien, including his alien file (A-file). 21 DHS failed to produce the
documents and, accordingly, on December 8, 2023, the Committee subpoenaed DHS Secretary
Alejandro Mayorkas for Rivera Zavala’s A-file, among other outstanding requests for A-files. 22
Pursuant to the Committee’s subpoena, on January 8, 2024, DHS produced the A-file. 23

The Biden-Harris Administration Failed to Prevent Rivera Zavala from Entering the United
States as a “Gotaway.”

The Committee’s review of Rivera Zavala’s A-file reveals that, on November 29, 2021,
Border Patrol encountered Rivera Zavala in Eagle Pass, Texas, and subsequently expelled him to
Mexico pursuant to Title 42 authority. 24 According to an ICE Enforcement and Removal
Operations summary contained in his A-File, Rivera Zavala later entered the United States at an
unknown time and place, presumably as a “gotaway.” 25

Less than two years later, on May 13, 2023, the Prattville, Alabama, police department
arrested Rivera Zavala for a vicious assault on a teenage girl. 26 According to a witness, the
victim was “eating at a Prattville restaurant with relatives when she noticed a man, whom she
later identified as Rivera Zavala, staring at her from across the restaurant.” 27 Rivera Zavala later
followed her into the restroom, locked the door, forced her into a stall, and brutally assaulted her
as she attempted to kick and fight him off. 28 ICE issued a warrant for Rivera Zavala’s arrest and
lodged an immigration detainer against him the same day. 29 Although ICE lodged a detainer

20
Marty Roney, No bond in Prattville rape case against Honduran man who illegally entered U.S., MONTGOMERY
ADVERTISER (May 15, 2023, 4:49 PM),
https://www.montgomeryadvertiser.com/story/news/crime/progress/2023/05/15/no-bond-in-prattville-rape-case-
where-defendant-is-in-the-country-illegally/70219553007/.
21
Letter from Jim Jordan et al., Chairman, H. Comm. on the Judiciary, to Alejandro Mayorkas, Sec’y, U.S. Dep’t of
Homeland Sec. (May 24, 2023).
22
Letter from Jim Jordan, Chairman, H. Comm. on the Judiciary, to Alejandro Mayorkas, Sec’y, U.S. Dep’t of
Homeland Sec. (Dec. 8, 2023).
23
Letter from Alejandro Mayorkas, Sec’y, U.S. Dep’t of Homeland Sec. to Jim Jordan et al., Chairman, H. Comm.
on the Judiciary (Jan. 8, 2024).
24
Alien File of Grevi Geovanni Rivera Zavala at 2, 11, provided to H. Comm. on the Judiciary Staff by U.S. Dep’t
of Homeland Sec. (on file with Comm.) [hereinafter Rivera Zavala A-File].
25
Id.
26
Id. at 11.
27
See Roney, supra note 20; see also Rivera Zavala A-File, supra note 24, at 11.
28
Id.
29
Rivera Zavala A-File, supra note 24, at 5-6.

5
against the alien following his arrest by Prattville police on May 13, 2023, it was only after the
Committee’s May 24, 2023, letter that ICE confirmed with the U.S. embassy in Honduras that
Rivera Zavala had a criminal record in his home country—a domestic violence arrest on
December 17, 2020. 30 Rivera Zavala pleaded guilty in the Prattville, Alabama, assault case on
April 3, 2024, and was sentenced to 10 years in prison, upon completion of which he will be
released into ICE custody for removal from the United States. 31

CONCLUSION

The disastrous immigration policies of the Biden-Harris Administration have had real-
world consequences for American citizens. The effects of those policies will be felt for years to
come, with criminal aliens in American neighborhoods harming families and hurting public
safety across the country. Rivera Zavala’s victim suffered as a result of the Biden-Harris
Administration’s open-borders policies incentivized him to cross the border and allowed him to
illegally enter the country. Tragically, Rivera Zavala’s victim is not criminal illegal aliens’ only
victim.

For 15 months, President Biden, Vice President Harris, and Senate Democrats have failed
to consider the House-passed H.R. 2, the Secure the Border Act of 2023, despite rapidly
deteriorating conditions both at the border and in the interior. To secure America, the Senate must
pass, and President Biden must sign into law, H.R. 2. In the meantime, the Committee and
Subcommittee will continue to conduct vigorous oversight to inform legislative reforms to
address President Biden and Vice President Harris’s dangerous immigration policies.

30
Information provided by U.S. Dep’t of Homeland Sec., Off. of Leg. Affs., to the Comm. (Aug. 28, 2023) (on file
with Comm.).
31
Marty Roney, Honduran man pleads guilty in Prattville rape of teenager in restaurant, MONTGOMERY
ADVERTISER (May 15, 2023),
https://www.montgomeryadvertiser.com/story/news/crime/progress/2024/04/03/honduran-man-pleads-guilty-in-
prattville-rape-of-teenager-in-restaurant/73196756007/.