Marie Vega still suffers from flashbacks.

August 3rd, 2014: the day she and her loved ones settled into their favorite hunting spot for a family trip, the day two criminal illegal immigrants ambushed them and took the life of her son, Javier “Harvey” Vega Jr.

She has to stay busy, she told IW Features, because the minute her mind is idle, the traumatic memories flood in. 

Her son’s murder wasn’t inevitable. Had immigration laws been enforced, Vega reflected, “my son would be here, and my grandchildren would have their dad, and they would never have witnessed what happened that day.”

Vega and her husband, Javier Vega, have been married for nearly five decades and live in the deep south of Texas, mere miles away from the Rio Grande River. The two raised their sons, Harvey and Jordi, in the Catholic faith, instilling in them family values of loyalty, selflessness, and respect. 

Harvey, their eldest, took those values to heart, joining the United States Marine Corps a few months after graduating high school. After his military service, “he still had a love for law enforcement,” Vega said, and living so close to the border where illegal immigrants regularly crossed from Mexico into the United States, Harvey asked his mother’s blessing to join the border patrol.

Harvey served as a border patrol agent until 2006, “until the day he was taken from us by the illegals.”

Hunting and fishing seasons are a “big thing” in Texas, said Vega, reflecting on her family’s August 2014 trip. The boys cast their fishing rods, and she and her daughter-in-law were relaxing together when two illegal immigrants driving a stolen vehicle stormed their campsite.

“They jumped out of their stolen vehicle, shooting at us,” Vega recalled. “When I heard the screaming and the shooting, I fell back from where I was sitting and struggled to get up, but I couldn’t get my footing.”

Vega crawled to her son and saw that he had been shot in the chest. Fueled by righteous fury, Vega picked up their AR and started firing back at the criminals. Her husband followed suit.

“To this day, I know that if we had not shot back, they would have killed everybody there so that there wouldn’t be any witnesses, because they knew we had children there, and that didn’t stop them,” Vega reflected.

But defending the rest of her family couldn’t take back what was lost. Harvey, while off-duty, had been killed. The immediate emotional aftermath was “very difficult,” Vega admitted, “and I imagine this is what it’s going to be like for the rest of my life.” 

“[Mothers are] not supposed to outlive our children, and obviously I have done that, and it’s something really hard to live with,” she said. “On top of that, there’s survivor’s guilt. There’s always the thought in your head like, ‘What could have I have done different to have prevented this from happening?’”

But according to Vega, there’s nothing that she could have changed.

Gustavo Tijerina-Sandoval, principal shooter, and his accomplice, Ismael Hernandez-Vallejo, were no strangers to law enforcement. Both had extensive criminal histories: Tijerina-Sandoval had prior convictions for misdemeanor assault, unlawful carrying of a weapon, driving while intoxicated, marijuana possession, and even a federal conviction for illegal reentry after deportation. He had been tied to at least three earlier armed robberies of local fishermen, one of which left a victim bloodied after being pistol-whipped. Hernandez-Vallejo had been deported twice before slipping back across the border, and was facing additional charges for aggravated robbery and tampering with evidence.

By the time of Harvey’s murder, both men were living unlawfully in the U.S., drifting between odd jobs and petty crime. Ultimately, Tijerina-Sandoval had $3,500 of debt to pay to people in Mexico, so the pair set out on that August day intending to rob the Vegas of their car to help pay off the debt. Decades of liberal policies, including “catch-and-release,” weak prosecution of illegal re-entry, and lax deportation enforcement—especially during the Biden presidency—protected criminals like Tijerina-Sandoval and Hernandez-Vallejo instead of Americans.

Tijerina-Sandoval currently sits on death row awaiting execution in a process that “just keeps dragging on and on,” Vega explained. Hernandez-Vallejo is locked away for half a century, but is eligible to go before the parole board in 2035. When he does, Vega said, her family will be there because she doesn’t believe he should be free, and furthermore, she doesn’t feel American taxpayers should be paying for illegals like these men.

“We’re housing them. We’re feeding them. We’re providing medical help. They’re doing fine in there, while my son’s not here,” Vega said.

As a legal immigrant, Vega said she feels angry about how illegal immigrants have been able to evade the law. Her father taught her to be a law-abiding citizen, to wait her turn, and to work hard to become a citizen of “the country that everybody wants to be in,” she said.

Some politicians do stand up for Americans, Vega added, but many others are “so dead set” on opening borders and protecting illegal immigrants.

“It’s heartbreaking,” Vega admitted, “And it makes me angry because they took an oath to uphold the Constitution, and they are supposed to be working for ‘We the people,’ but it seems like they’re not working for us Americans.”

After Tijerina-Sandoval had received the death penalty, Vega said a reporter tried to assert she finally had justice. But justice for Harvey, Vega said, would in fact mean that both Democrats and Republicans do the right thing.

“It doesn’t matter which side of the aisle you’re on; you have a job to do,” she said. “I wish that every politician would think of Americans and the consequences of losing our loved ones because we’re letting just anybody in unvetted.”

Now that eleven years have passed, Vega does feel more hopeful that there could be justice for Harvey. The community support their family received was overwhelming: the Sarita Checkpoint was renamed the Javier Vega Jr. Checkpoint, scholarships have been given out in his name, a street was named after him, and, among the many other acts of recognition, “everybody still wants to keep his memory alive.”

In that vein, Vega translates her grief into action. As one of the Angel Moms––mothers whose children were killed as a result of weak immigration laws––Vega speaks out publicly about the countless ways illegal immigration devastates a nation. With the other parents of lost children by her side, Vega feels empowered since they’re “on a mission” together.

During President Trump’s first term, Vega said, the Angel Moms had full support. She said he had given them a voice. But during President Biden’s time in office, “it almost felt like we were shut down.”

With President Trump serving his second term, Vega expressed her happiness that someone is back in office who is “working for ‘We the People,’ not for illegals.” And no matter how painful it may feel to recount her story, Vega said that with his support and the support of her fellow Angel Moms, she’s not going to stop.

“We don’t want this to happen to anybody else,” Vega said. “And we’re happy that more Americans are seeing what is happening at the border.”