My daughter Katie was killed by a man who should never have been here.
On January 19, 2025, an illegal immigrant drunk driver slammed into the car she was riding in at nearly 80 miles per hour. The impact killed her.
Her name was Katie Abraham.
She was my youngest daughter. She loved the water, loved music, and had the kind of joy that filled every room she entered. She had dreams, plans, and a life that should still be unfolding today.
Instead, her life ended on an Illinois roadway because of policies our leaders insist are both compassionate and moral.
The man who killed her, Julio Cucul-Bol, had previously been deported from the United States. But he was able to reenter the country in 2022, crossing a porous southern border during the chaotic years of Joe Biden's administration, under the oversight of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.
Once back in the United States, he made his way to Illinois, a sanctuary state whose policies signal that immigration laws will not be enforced.
These policies do not discourage illegal entry.
They encourage it.
No meaningful background checks.
No serious health screenings.
No real effort to ensure that those entering our communities can safely function within them.
Just ideological certainty from politicians who insist this is the compassionate and moral path forward.
Today in America, morality itself has been turned upside down.
We are told it is compassionate—and therefore moral—to encourage people to cross the border illegally. We are told it is compassionate to allow them to live here outside the law. We are told it is compassionate to shield them from enforcement.
And if you question any of it—if you ask whether these policies might harm the very communities they claim to help—you are labeled immoral, racist, or cruel.
But morality is not defined by slogans.
Morality is defined by consequences.
Bol is now sitting in an Illinois prison, where the state is treating him for HIV—a serious illness he carried while living freely in our communities. No one identified it. No one treated it. No one ensured he was under any supervision.
For all the talk of compassion, Illinois simply allowed him to drift through society until tragedy struck.
That is not moral.
That is negligence.
But something deeper has also happened in our public life.
The moral compass itself has been flipped.
Following the law is now portrayed as immoral. Enforcing immigration law is described as cruel. Meanwhile, obstructing law enforcement, ignoring immigration authorities, and openly defying federal law are celebrated as compassionate and moral acts.
In this inverted moral framework, protecting citizens is treated as wrong while ignoring predictable harm is praised as virtue.
This inversion is not limited to immigration policy.
We see it in the rise of so-called restorative justice systems where repeat offenders—sometimes lifelong criminals—are released through revolving-door justice policies in the name of correcting past racial injustices. These policies are often presented as compassionate and morally necessary.
But good intentions alone do not make a policy moral.
True rehabilitation requires the hard work of preparing offenders to safely reenter society while ensuring that public safety comes first. Too often, that work is never done. Instead, dangerous individuals are simply released back into communities where innocent and defenseless people become the ones paying the price.
Once again, morality is turned upside down.
Protecting the public becomes secondary. Accountability is treated as immoral. And the victims created by these policies are dismissed as unfortunate consequences of a supposedly higher moral cause.
Sometimes the inversion goes even further.
A policy may appear compassionate and moral on the surface, but if it is pursued for immoral reasons, it is not moral at all.
A moral act done for immoral reasons is still immoral.
Encouraging illegal migration to backfill populations in states losing residents—so political leaders can preserve congressional apportionment and maintain political power—is not compassion. It is political self-interest disguised as morality.
Illinois’ sanctuary policies, championed by politicians such as JB Pritzker, are presented as moral leadership. Question them and you are scolded by politicians and defended by a sympathetic media that too often behaves less like a watchdog and more like an activist.
But morality is not measured by how loudly politicians proclaim their virtue.
It is measured by the lives affected by their decisions.
If a policy predictably creates victims, it is not moral.
Calling it compassionate does not make it moral.
Calling it justice does not make it moral.
Calling it progress does not make it moral.
The most dangerous politicians are often the ones most certain of their own righteousness. Because when leaders believe their cause is morally unquestionable, they stop questioning the harm their policies cause.
And ordinary families pay the price.
My family paid that price on January 19, 2025.
Nothing will bring Katie back. Nothing will restore the future she was supposed to have.
But the least we can do as a country is tell the truth.
Policies that predictably create victims are not moral, no matter how compassionately they are described.
And if our leaders refuse to acknowledge that truth, more empty chairs will appear at more family tables.
Just like the one in my home, where my daughter Katie should still be sitting.