Rep. Brian Babin, R-Texas, and the mother of Jocelyn Nungaray, the 12-year-old girl murdered last year in north Houston, told Newsmax on Wednesday that they hope legislators will permanently rename a national wildlife refuge along the Texas coast after Jocelyn.
According to authorities, Jocelyn Nungaray was sexually assaulted and murdered on June 17, 2024, in the early morning after walking to a local convenience store near her home in Houston, Texas. Two men, Johan Jose Martinez Rangel, 22, and Franklin Jose Peña Ramos, 26, both originally from Venezuela, were apprehended and charged with the crime three days later. Their trials are still ongoing.
President Donald Trump renamed the Anahuac National Wildlife Refuge after Jocelyn Nungaray in an executive order shortly after taking office. Babin and other legislators have introduced a bill that would codify that name change to prevent it from being altered by a future president.
Babin told "Wake Up America," "We cannot forget Jocelyn's name, and I think it's very fitting that we have this bill … to memorialize her and also to … make it into law so that a future Democrat president or anybody else that becomes president cannot reverse this renaming of the Jocelyn Nungaray National Wildlife Refuge, and I think this is very, very important."
Jocelyn's mother, Alexis Nungaray, added that "Jocelyn was a full lover of animals and nature and anything to a little locust, to a snake, to a deer, to a pigeon. She loved all animals, she wanted all animals to have something, to have a place to call home and to have somewhere to be safe. And just knowing that this national wildlife refuge is exactly that, it's a home for these animals that travel miles and miles away, she would be ecstatic. She would really be jumping for joy."
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Theodore Bunker ✉
Theodore Bunker, a Newsmax writer, has more than a decade covering news, media, and politics.
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