The mother of a murdered 13-year-old is calling for a new head of Homeland Security
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INTERMEDIATE: California mother and grandmother Angie Morfin, whose 13-year-old son, Ruben, was killed at point-blank range by a member of an illegal gang, shared a message with incoming Department of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin: “Make sure no other mother has to get the call I got.”
“Ruben was just a little boy with dreams of growing up, getting married, and having a family of his own,” she told Fox News Digital, adding, “For 34 years I’ve been fighting to keep his memory alive, so he didn’t die in vain.”
She expressed her hope that Mullin, the current Republican senator from Oklahoma who will take over at DHS at the end of the month, “will continue to listen to Angel Families and stand with us as we fight to make sure no other mother has to get the call I did.”
In a recent interview with American Border Story shared exclusively with Fox News Digital, Morfin said his family is still devastated decades after losing Ruben.
“I am crying for him today as if it was just yesterday,” she said.
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Angie Morfin (left) said she continues to mourn her 13-year-old son Ruben (right) every day after he was killed by a member of an illegal gang. (Courtesy of American Border Story)
In the winter of 1994, Ruben, a Spanish teenager who was not in a gang, was chased and shot in the head by Mexican national Ezequiel Mariscal near Orange County, California. Ruben had gone to a party with a group of friends.
Morfin said that although his family lived in Oceanside, just north of San Diego, at the time, he had sent Ruben to stay with his grandparents during the holidays because of concerns about gangs in their area.
Then one night, just after midnight, Morfin said he got a phone call.
“I picked up the phone, and I heard my mother yelling, ‘They shot Nino, they shot Nino.’ I knew it was my child because that is what we call him because he is small,” she said.
Morfin said she and her husband rushed to the hospital.
“It was probably the longest trip of my life. I was scared. I didn’t know what I was going to see when I got there,” he explained.
When he arrived, he was made to wait.
“They told me he was dying. That if he succeeds all night, he will be a vegetable for the rest of his life because they just shot his brain,” he said.
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“Finally, my husband came in, he came out crying and told me not to come in, so that I could remember him the way he was, and leave, “no, this was my child you are talking about. I have to see for myself..'”
Inside the room where Ruben is kept for livelihood, Morfin said his son was bandaged and very disturbed.
“I could see my child on that table. His body was shaking from all the machines he was wearing. He had bandages on his head, and his eye was out,” he recalled. “I asked to kiss her one last time before they cut [life support]. I then went closer to my child, and kissed him one last time. In his beautiful eye, he had two tears.”
“What I always try to do in my mind is to stop the bullet,” he added.
According to Morfin, the shooter had been deported. He was a teenager at the time of the shooting and a member of the Posole gang. After the shooting, he fled to Mexico and was later sentenced to 45 years in a Mexican state prison.
After losing Ruben, Morfin said, “Everything changed about me, everything.”
Morfin founded Mothers Against Gang Violence, a California-based law enforcement advocacy group. He also testified before Congress about the need to tighten immigration laws. He explained that his representation of victims like Ruben is “my way of keeping him alive.”.”
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A Morfin family photo showing the family with pictures of Reuben with President Donald Trump in the Oval Office. (The Story of the American Frontier)
He praised President Donald Trump’s tough policy against illegal immigration, saying “it takes wisdom to do what he’s doing.”
“He helped me talk to my son,” she said.
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“There are a lot of new victims,” he continued, criticizing current Democrats, saying they “have one agenda … to bring in more Democrats.”
Nicole Kiprilov, executive director of American Border Story, told Fox News Digital that Morfins’ story is “a sad reminder that behind every statistic is a child whose life has been stolen and the family is forced to live with this loss forever.”
“Angel Families like Angie’s have spent decades fighting to make sure their loved ones are not forgotten,” Kiprilov said. “We hope that Secretary Mullin will continue to listen to these families and put the safety of American communities first.”
