'Top Model' Killer Spared Deportation Under Obama's DACA

A 19-year-old illegal immigrant charged with killing a former "America's Next Top Model" contestant and three others in North Carolina last month was spared deportation after being approved for President Barack Obama's Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, two Senate Republicans said Friday.

Emmanuel Jesus Rangel-Hernandez was put into deportation proceedings after authorities arrested him in March 2012 for alleged possession of marijuana, according to information released by two members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Chairman Chuck Grassley of Iowa and Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina.

Rangel-Hernandez's hearings were dismissed in December 2013 after his DACA application was approved, the senators said in a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson.

In addition, "whistleblowers," the senators said, told them that officials at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services granted Rangel-Hernandez's deferral with the "full knowledge that he was a known gang member."

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