If Joe Biden were a real leader, instead of what he is, he would have gone to Woodstock, GA, not Brownsville, TX.

There, unlike his sanitized and scripted visit to Brownsville, he could have gotten an upfront view of his open border policy that has brought misery to a lot of Americans.

Woodstock is the small town in Georgia just north of Atlanta where Laken Riley grew up. It is where she was buried. Her middle name was Hope.

She is the 22-year-old University of Georgia nursing student who was allegedly beaten to death by Jose Antonio Ibarra, 26, an illegal immigrant from Venezuela with rap sheet who, like thousands of others, Biden waved into the country with no questions asked.

Riley had been out jogging in a wooded area at the university on February 22 when Ibarra, allegedly killed her with a blunt instrument,

She would have been alive today had Biden not done away with the secure border policies that former President Donald Trump had put into place.

She would be alive today if Ibarra had been deported after being arrested earlier in New York on charges of endangering a child.

She would be alive today if Ibarra had not been let into the country in the first place.

She would be alive today if Biden were not the president.

Riley’s wake was held at the Woodstock City Church on Friday, the day after Biden went to the border for a campaign photo op, and to blame Donald Trump and the Republicans for the illegal immigrant invasion that he orchestrated.

What Joe Biden did in opening the borders makes the 1980 Mariel boatlift look like a family outing.

That was when Cuban dictator Fidel Castro, who had barred Cubans from leaving his Communist paradise, suddenly opened his borders and allowed people to do leave.

Thousands rushed to the port of Mariel to board any boat that would take them across the Straits of Florida to the U.S. and freedom.

It is estimated that 125,000 Cuban nationals did leave before Castro shut the operation down.

The influx of Cubans strained the U.S.’s capacity to accommodate them. partly because Castro had emptied out his prisons and mental institutions to allow inmates to join those who were leaving.

While most of the Cubans were industrious and law abiding, U.S. law enforcement authorities spent years tracking down an untold number of murderers, rapists, drug dealers and all-around criminals that Castro has sent over to prey on Americans. Havana became safer than Miami.

Castro may be dead, but he is somewhere laughing. His legacy lives on.

Only Joe Biden has outdone Fidel Castro.

Castro’s migrants were all were from one country.

Joe Biden opened the borders to millions of unvetted immigrants from every country in the world. And you just know they include thousands of unvetted murderers, rapists, drug dealers and all-around criminals, as well as terrorists.

They are now committing the crimes in the U.S. that they committed in their home countries.

Take crime ridden Venezuela for instance. It once was a safe and prosperous country before left wing dictator Nicolas Maduro turned into a Cuban-style police state and economic basket case.

Hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans have left, mainly for the U.S. There are reports that, like Castro, Maduro has opened his prisons and mental institutions, as other countries have, to allow criminals and inmates to join Venezuelans, like Ibarra, who have illegally crossed into the United States.

It took four days after her murder for the “White House”—not Joe Biden –to issue a one paragraph statement expressing its “deepest condolences” to Laken’s family.

Were he a man of character, Biden would take responsibility for Laken’s death. He could have gone to her funeral, or at least have talked to her parents.  He does not even mention her name.

Say her name, Joe. Then say you’re sorry.

Peter Lucas is a veteran political reporter. Email him at: peter.lucas@bostonherald.com

Laken Hope Riley (Augusta University via AP)
A person enters the funeral for Laken Riley, the 22-year-old nursing student who was killed last week on the University of Georgia campus, at Woodstock City Church in Woodstock, Ga., on Friday, March 1, 2024. (Arvin Temkar/Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP)