After federal officials stopped the early release of an illegal immigrant convicted in the 2021 DUI manslaughter that killed two Orange County teens in Seal Beach, California, state Sen. Tony Strickland thinks policy changes are needed.

The Republican told Fox News Digital that programs like the in-prison credit system need to be changed. This system could have let Oscar Eduardo Ortega-Anguiano go back into the community in July if the Department of Justice (DOJ) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) didn’t step in quickly.

The office of Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom said last week that California will “coordinate” with ICE to “transfer him before release,” since he will only serve three and a half years of his 10-year sentence in state prison.

“These programs need to be changed.” Some of this needs to be changed. To say it again, I believe that public safety is the most important job of government, and we need to make our system in California more accountable. You could break the law if you make a mistake. Do the time. In an interview with Fox News Digital, Strickland said, “These programs don’t make us safer; they make us less safe.”

The senator called the plan to let the prisoners out early “a slap in the face of the parents and everyone who loved those children who died.”

Ortega-Anguiano, 43, was high and drunk and going nearly 100 mph on the 405 freeway in Orange County in November 2021 when he hit a car driven by Anya Varfolomeev and Nicholay Osokin, a young couple of 19. They were both killed instantly as their bodies burned. He was found guilty of two counts of gross vehicular killing while drunk in the spring of 2022.

Fox News said that the families of the victims were told about the early release on Easter Sunday. The DOJ said after the story, however, that Ortega-Anguiano would be charged with federal crimes to keep him in jail longer.

“For safety and security reasons, CDCR cannot give out information about a prisoner’s release date or location before they are free.” “People who are in jail or prison can get credits for taking part in rehabilitative programming, which could move their parole dates up,” the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation said last week.

ICE told Fox News Digital that Ortega-Anguiano had broken the law twice before and was in the country illegally before the crash that killed the two teens.

Strickland said, “The story moved me, and I think this should never happen again.”

As for early release worries, he said Democrats in Sacramento are being quiet about them.

“I haven’t heard anything.” The supermajority doesn’t hear what’s being said, and Governor Newsom is running for president and not doing his job as governor of California. She said, “He’s so interested in what’s going on in the Trump administration.”

Californians are becoming more aware of the problems in Sacramento, according to Strickland. The Orange County politician said that this is a good sign.

People are now becoming aware of the lack of leadership, which is good news. They are now looking for leaders to step forward and help fix the state. “I do think California will be golden again, but it takes leaders like me and others in the legislature to make that clear,” Strickland said.