A 28-year-old Haitian national now charged with murdering his aunt and strangling his cousin in Lee County, Florida, was released into the country by the Biden administration after illegally crossing the border in 2024, DHS officials say.
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin revealed on Wednesday that Whycliff Longin had entered the United States illegally through Florida two years ago and was turned loose into the interior under the prior administration's border policies. Longin was arrested this month by the Lee County Sheriff's Office and charged with murder, attempted murder, sexual battery, and burglary involving battery, a set of charges tied to a single violent episode at a family duplex in southwest Florida.
The victim, Amadette Longin, was Whycliff's aunt. She had taken him in and given him a place to stay, according to statements family members gave to police. Officers found her body inside the residence after responding to a call from a second victim, Whycliff's unnamed female cousin, who told police she woke up to find him strangling her.
The cousin told officers she managed to break free from Whycliff Longin's grip and barricade herself in the bathroom. When deputies searched the rest of the duplex, they discovered Amadette Longin's body. Whycliff Longin was located and arrested at the duplex next door.
He remains in Lee County custody. ICE has lodged a detainer against him, meaning federal immigration authorities have formally requested that local jailers hold him for transfer rather than release him on bail or at the end of any local sentence.
Mullin did not hold back. In a statement reported by Breitbart News, the DHS secretary tied the case directly to the prior administration's handling of illegal border crossings:
"This dangerous illegal alien should have never been allowed into our country in the first place. If it weren't for the Biden administration's reckless open-border policies, Amadette Longin would still be alive. ICE has lodged a detainer and will work with our partners in Florida to make sure this killer is never released onto our streets ever again."
Longin has been charged but not convicted. But the DHS statement raises a blunt policy question that no amount of legal process can dodge: how did a man who crossed the border illegally end up free inside the country long enough to be accused of killing a family member who sheltered him?
The department confirmed that Longin entered the U.S. illegally through Florida in 2024 and was released into the interior by the Biden administration. What DHS has not disclosed is the precise mechanism, whether Longin was paroled, released under a notice to appear, or processed through some other catch-and-release channel that the prior administration employed at scale during its final years in office.
That gap matters. If Longin was paroled into the country under one of the Biden-era mass-release programs, it would add his name to a growing list of cases in which individuals released through those channels went on to face serious criminal charges. If he was simply processed and released with a future court date, it underscores the long-running enforcement failure that allowed millions of illegal immigrants to settle into American communities with little federal follow-up.
Either way, the result was the same for Amadette Longin.
The Lee County case is not an isolated episode. In Massachusetts, a 43-year-old illegal immigrant from Brazil named Flavio Alcantara Dias stands accused of strangling 33-year-old Brianna Connolly to death inside her home. Dias had previous arrests for DUI and aggravated assault, yet an immigration judge granted his motion to terminate deportation proceedings on a technicality in October 2024, Fox News reported. He was released under the Biden administration despite that criminal history.
Dias himself called 911 after the killing. A prosecutor told the court that Dias stated on the call: "I ended up killing a woman by mistake." He then said he "went crazy and suffocated her," according to Middlesex County Assistant District Attorney Thomas Brandt.
DHS responded to that case with language nearly identical to its statement on the Longin arrest: "Our message is clear: if you come into our country illegally and break our laws, we will find you, we will arrest you, and we will deport you."
Two women in two different states. Two illegal immigrants with records or entries that should have triggered removal. Two releases under the same administration's policies. The statements from DHS are firm, but they come after the fact, after the victims are beyond help.
Whycliff Longin faces four charges: murder, attempted murder, sexual battery, and burglary involving battery. The sexual battery and burglary charges suggest the incident at the duplex may have involved conduct beyond the strangulation and killing described in the DHS statement, but no further details about those charges have been made public.
It is also unclear whether Longin has been arraigned or entered a plea. His current custody status, held in Lee County with an ICE detainer, means he is unlikely to be released before trial, but the detainer itself is a federal request, not a court order. Whether Florida authorities honor it indefinitely depends on local policy and the progress of the state criminal case.
Mullin's statement frames the case as a direct consequence of Biden-era border policy. That framing is a political judgment, not a legal finding. But the underlying facts are not in dispute: Longin entered illegally, was released, stayed in the country for roughly two years, and now stands accused of killing the woman who gave him a roof.
Amadette Longin did what family does, she took in a relative. The federal government's job was simpler: keep out a man who had no legal right to be here. One of those obligations was met. The other was not.
