The father of a young woman tragically murdered by an illegal alien has broken his silence to discuss his personal pain and the political controversy surrounding the murder.

A Venezuelan illegal is accused of murdering Georgia nursing school student Laken Riley. “I wake up every day thinking that I can call her, and I can’t,” her heartbroken father Jason Riley told an NBC interviewer, via Western Journal. Like his ex-wife, Riley is now supporting Donald Trump, in light of the disastrous border policies of Joe Biden and his fellow Democrats.

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Jason Riley doesn’t want his daughter’s death merely “used politically,” but recognizes that “Laken has been a rallying cry for secure borders and for the illegal immigration policies of this current administration.” Riley does want action to protect women from trafficking and to secure our borders.

He explained, “It makes me angry. I feel like, you know, they’re just using my daughter’s name for that. And she was much better than that, and she should be raised up for the person that she is. She was an angel.”

He said he wishes he could have protected his daughter. “She was only 22. She had a lot of life left to give to the world,” he told NBC. “If everybody could live like Laken, it would make the world a better place.”

Riley did acknowledge that there is a political aspect to his daughter’s death, because her killer was an illegal migrant. “We have no idea if that would have changed anything, but he’s here illegally,” Riley said. “That he might not have been here had we had secure borders.”

Related: Illegal in US Under Biden Program Arrested for Rape

“I understand them wanting to come here for a better life, but when you have gang members and people who can commit violent crimes, especially against women, I think we can stop some of that,” Riley emphasized.

Joe Biden mispronounced Laken’s name as “Lincoln” during his State of the Union address. Laken’s mother then called Biden “pathetic” and attended a Trump rally.

From NBC News:

While [Jason] and her mother divorced when [Laken] Riley was young, he and his daughter remained close, calling each other often, he said. She spoke about wanting to graduate from Augusta University’s nursing college and work at a children’s hospital. She wrote down her goals for the year, which included going on a date after she had been such a “study bug,” her father said.

She was so preoccupied with school, her sorority and church that the pair last spoke about two weeks before she died…On the day of Biden’s State of the Union address, a bill in honor of Riley’s daughter authored by Rep. Mike Collins, R-Ga., passed the GOP-led House with 37 Democrats supporting it. If it is signed into law, the Laken Riley Act would require U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to take into custody undocumented immigrants who commit theft-related crimes, such as shoplifting, and allow state attorneys general to sue to prevent the U.S. homeland security secretary from taking immigration action when perceived “policy failures” harm the state or its citizens.

No words can fully express the pain of a parent who has lost a child, especially to so brutal a death as Laken suffered. But every American should grieve with Laken’s family and demand action be taken on the illegal migrant crisis to prevent similar tragedies.