EXCLUSIVE: Alexis Nungaray, the mother of 12-year-old Jocelyn Nungaray, whose murder authorities say was at the hands of two illegal immigrants suspected to be Tren de Aragua gang members, told Fox News Digital that renaming a local wildlife refuge in her daughter’s honor would mean “the world” to her family.

Jocelyn Nungaray was sexually assaulted and strangled to death, allegedly by two Venezuelan illegals, Franklin Jose Pena Ramos and Johan Jose Rangel Martinez, who were let through the southern border during the Biden administration. Her body was found tied up in a bayou in Houston.

Since her daughter’s murder, Alexis Nungaray has become a vocal advocate for increased border security and a supporter of President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown.

In an interview with Fox News Digital, Nungaray said the tragic manner of Jocelyn’s death “takes away [from] who she was as a person.” However, she said that the renaming of a 39,000-acre wildlife refuge on the Texas Gulf Coast preserves Jocelyn’s memory for what she loved in life. 

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Trump issued an executive order on March 5 renaming the former Anahuac National Wildlife Refuge in southeast Houston to the Jocelyn Nungaray National Wildlife Refuge.

Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, and Rep. Brian Babin, R-Texas, have since introduced bills to enshrine Trump’s executive order into law, making it more difficult for a future president to change the name of the refuge back. The Senate has already passed the bill, and Babin is working to pass it in the House.

Babin told Fox News Digital that his bill to codify Trump’s renaming of the refuge after Jocelyn is receiving bipartisan support and that he expects it will be passed by the House soon and be immediately signed by the president.

“This is a beautiful place. And if we name it after her, I think we will preserve her legacy,” he said.

“The main thing we need to remember is that this can never be allowed to happen again,” he added. “We get this thing in law, codified, no future president can ever undo this. And so, we will have a memory of what happens when you have bad policies that can create a system that will allow this to happen to innocent people like Jocelyn.”

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Rep. Brian Babin told Fox News Digital that his bill to codify Trump’s renaming of the refuge after Jocelyn is receiving bipartisan support and that he expects it will be passed by the House soon and be immediately signed by the president. (Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call via Getty Images)

Nungaray said the effort to rename the refuge “touches every part of my heart and my family’s heart.”

“Everyone who knew Jocelyn knew she loved animals so much, knew she loved nature, wildlife,” explained Nungaray. “She truly loved all animals and all creatures, and she wanted every animal to have a place to call home.”

“Knowing that this national wildlife refuge is a place for a bunch of wild animals that travel through the country, and it is somewhere that they can call home, and it is somewhere that they can find a place of safety for them. I just know it would absolutely mean the world to her to know she has something in honor of her in that nature.”

She said that seeing the signs going up around Houston bearing her daughter’s name is “bittersweet.” 

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“I went out there to just go see what it was about, what it was like, and the amount of peace I felt just being there, it was just so pure and so peaceful,” said Alexis Nungaray. “Immediately I thought Jocelyn would love this. She would love to be out here.” (Norman Welsh via Jocelyn Nungaray National Wildlife Refuge website)

“I went out there to just go see what it was about, what it was like, and the amount of peace I felt just being there, it was just so pure and so peaceful,” said Nungaray. “Immediately I thought Jocelyn would love this. She would love to be out here.” 

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“She wasn’t just a 12-year-old girl who was strangled and left in a bayou of water,” Nungaray went on. “She was a very creative, talented, free-spirited 12-year-old girl.” 

Smiling, Nungaray added that Jocelyn “was very quirky” and “an old soul.” She liked dressing in 1990s-style cargo jeans and Converse and loved listening to music from as far back as the 1940s and 1950s.

“She was very different and unique. She was an amazing friend,” said Nungaray.

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Nungaray told Fox News Digital that she “will always advocate for her and be her voice and stand up for better border control and immigration laws. Because I know one-million percent Jocelyn’s death should have been preventable.” (Getty Images)

Nungaray said she is very grateful to Trump for both his support and for “keeping his promises” regarding immigration enforcement.

“I support immigration, but I say there’s just a right way and a wrong way to do it,” she explained. “He’s protecting the people, and he’s taking consideration to the people, us the citizens and making sure we’re safe and our kids are safe, women are safe, that we’re all safe in our communities.”

“We’ve still got a long way to go,” she went on. “But I will always advocate for her and be her voice and stand up for better border control and immigration laws. Because I know one-million percent Jocelyn’s death should have been preventable.”

An evenly divided Supreme Court on Thursday ruled against a religious school that sought public funding from the state of Oklahoma. 

In a 4-4 vote, the justices upheld the Oklahoma State Supreme Court’s decision that for St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School in Oklahoma City to receive public funds would be unconstitutional. Justice Amy Coney Barrett had recused herself from the case. 

The court issued a one-sentence ruling upholding the lower court’s decision, saying only: “The judgment is affirmed by an equally divided Court.”

Oklahoma has argued that providing state funds for a religious charter school violates the First Amendment. 

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The Oklahoma Statewide Virtual Charter School Board approved St. Isidore’s contract request in June 2023, making them eligible to receive public funds. The school agreed that it would be free and open to all students “as a traditional public school,” and would comply with local, state and federal education laws.

But St. Isidore also indicated that the school “fully embraces the teachings” of the Catholic Church and participates “in the evangelizing mission of the church.”

Its ability to receive state funding was later blocked by the Oklahoma Supreme Court, which ruled that using the funds for a religious school was in violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. 

Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond sued to block the approval of the school’s state charter, calling it an “unlawful sponsorship” of a sectarian institution, and “a serious threat to the religious liberty of all four-million Oklahomans.” 

That argument was appealed to the Supreme Court, which agreed to hear the case in October.

School choice advocates rally outside the Supreme Court building. (Fox News Digital )

In more than two hours of wide-ranging oral arguments last month, justices appeared split along ideological lines over whether to allow St. Isidore to become the first religious charter school in the U.S. 

The justices focused on two questions during the oral arguments: First was whether charter schools should be treated as public schools, which are considered extensions of the state and therefore subject to the Establishment Cause and its ban establishing or endorsing a religion; or if the school should be considered a private entity or contractor, which was the argument made by St. Isidore.

The second question was whether Oklahoma’s actions violated the Free Exercise Clause of the Constitution, by placing what the school argues is an undue burden on its religious mission.

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From left: Supreme Court Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson. (Getty Images)

The decision comes as the Supreme Court’s conservative majority has, in recent years, ruled in favor of allowing taxpayer funds to be allocated to some religious organizations to provide “non-sectarian services” such as adoption services or food banks.

In this case, the justices debated what limits on curriculum supervision and control would be placed on the religious charter school, if its contract with the state was allowed to move forward.

Justices Kentanji Brown Jackson, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan pressed attorneys for the school on how they would treat students with different religious backgrounds who might opt to attend.

There is no indication of how each justice ultimately voted. 

The National Park Service recently identified a hiker who died in the Grand Canyon last week as a beloved 74-year-old Washington state doctor.

Grand Canyon Regional Communications Center staff received a report on May 15 of an unresponsive hiker on the North Kaibab Trail, about half a mile below the North Kaibab Trailhead.

Dr. Dennis Smith, of Olympia, Washington, was attempting a rim-to-rim hike from the South Rim to the North Rim when authorities and friends said he collapsed on the trail.

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Though there is limited cell phone service in the canyon, the incident happened close enough to the top that they were able to call for a park service helicopter. Medics restarted his heart, but it later stopped again, and he was pronounced dead at the scene.

His cause of death is under investigation by the Coconino County Medical Examiner’s Office, according to the park service.

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Fellow doctor, Tom Helpenstell, who worked with Smith for more than 30 years, told Fox News Digital the pair ran across the canyon when it was hotter, and he believes it was a “freak” accident.

“I think it was 100 degrees or close to it, but he’s really good about hydrating,” Helpenstell said. “He’s always drinking fluids. … He’s way too smart to be pushing beyond his limits. I think this was just a freak thing.”

Dr. Dennis Smith worked in general orthopedics. (Photo courtesy of Tom Helpenstell)

After doing a short stint in the Navy, Smith, a former family practice doctor, became an orthopedic surgeon. He then started his own practice, Olympia Orthopaedic Associates, where he met Helpenstell in 1994.

“We worked together in the same office and assisted each other every Tuesday in surgeries for 30 years,” Helpenstell said. “He and I have run across the Grand Canyon three times, doing Ultra Trail-type running. Probably two years ago, he decided not to do running [anymore], so he was hiking with a group out of Tucson, Arizona, where he spends the winters.”

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Before deciding not to keep running, the pair ran up Mount Whitney together, completed full Iron Man competitions and Olympic-distance triathlons together, and climbed Mount Rainier.

“He’s super active, super fit,” Helpenstell said. “This was not even a run, this was a hike. I don’t want to downplay it. Grand Canyon’s a big day, for sure, but this was completely out of the blue.”

Dr. Dennis Smith was described as someone who was “super fit.” (Photo courtesy of Tom Helpenstell)

In addition to Smith’s athletic feats, Helpenstell said he was highly respected in his community for his work in general orthopedics, where he did trauma, hip and knee replacements. 

“He would jump in and take care of anyone at any time. Really, really great,” Helpenstell said. “Within the surgeon community, we’re the carpenters. … Even when he retired from his regular work [in 2021], he stayed on and took call for us and stayed up at night doing cases. He kept his hand in it, until just about a year and a half or two ago. He was an amazing man.”

Dr. Dennis Smith started a practice in Washington state in the late 1980s. (George Rose/Getty Images, Olympia Orthopaedic Associates)

“He read like crazy,” Helpenstell said. “He was like an encyclopedia. We would always joke, we don’t need Google, we have Dennis. He was really into health and nutrition, and what diets are the right ones to take, and what supplements. I mean, the guy was crazy about staying healthy. He had switched to playing pickleball because he thought it would make his brain learn new things, which would keep him from getting Alzheimer’s or anything like that. He was more focused than anyone I know about staying healthy and living long, which makes this hard.”

Dr. Dennis Smith runs a race, is pictured standing on the first place spot on the podium. (Photos courtesy of Tom Helpenstell)

Smith leaves behind his wife, Evelyn, who would have celebrated their 50th anniversary on Sunday, and four children. 

He also leaves behind numerous grandchildren who he enjoyed hiking and running with.

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The NPS urged all visitors to Grand Canyon National Park, particularly those planning to hike or backpack in the inner canyon, to prepare for extreme heat.

Park rangers strongly advise against hiking in the inner canyon during the hottest part of the day, between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. Hikers and backpackers attempting rigorous distances, such as rim to rim, through the inner canyon, are encouraged to be self-reliant to prevent emergency situations for themselves and responders. 

“Be aware that efforts to assist hikers may be delayed due to limited staff, the number of rescue calls, and employee safety requirements,” according to the park service.