Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin responded to the life sentence of an American citizen charged with smuggling 11 illegal aliens in from Mexico, Townhall has learned first.
Rassian Nateray Comer, 21, ended up being responsible for the death of four individuals who were killed during a car chase with the Texas Department of Public Safety in March 2023, according to the Dallas Morning News. Among the victims were a 7-year-old, Emilia Brooke Tambunga, and her grandmother, according to DHS. Two of the other individuals being smuggled were also killed.
“This horrific tragedy is almost beyond words,” DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin said in a statement, as it was part of a Homeland Security Investigations effort. The department said that the other illegal aliens in Comer’s vehicle were also injured as a result of the crash that occurred at a sped through red light.
“This monster was already trying to cause more chaos and destruction by smuggling illegal aliens into this country, then decided to lead police on a high-speed chase that claimed the lives of a grandmother and her granddaughter,” Mullin continued.
“Maria Tambunga and Emilia Brooke Tambunga should still be alive today, and they would be if it wasn’t for this criminal who endangered so many lives just for profit,” the secretary further added. “Thanks to our partners at the Department of Justice, this scumbag will spend the rest of his life behind bars, where he belongs. My thoughts and prayers are with the Tambunga family, who have suffered a loss that few of us can even imagine.”
Maria “Coke” Tambunga's truck after the crash
United States Attorney Ryan Raybould said in a statement that “a grandmother, a 7-year-old child and two Mexican nationals were all killed because of Mr. Comer’s criminal and depraved actions.”
The department noted that Comer pleaded guilty in June to multiple charges related to the deadly incident, including “11 counts of transportation of an illegal alien resulting in death.” He was sentenced last week.
In a victim statement from the Tambunga family and Gin & Tim Jespersen, they said “here are no words that can adequately express the unbearable impact of losing Mom and Emilia.”
“Losing Emilia Brooke left us fractured with a gaping wound. Nothing can undo what this animal did, but it does affirm something important: their lives mattered, their deaths mattered, and what was done to them could not simply go unanswered,” the statement read. “Today is not about closure—because a loss of this magnitude does not simply close.”
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