Nearly a decade after 21-year-old Sarah Root was killed by a drunk driver in Nebraska, her father and brother will sit in the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday night as guests for President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address — a moment that comes after the man responsible for her death was extradited and sentenced.
Sarah Root, an Iowa native, was killed in January 2016, just hours after graduating from Bellevue University. Authorities said the driver who struck her vehicle, Eswin Mejia, had a blood alcohol content more than three times the legal limit. According to the Department of Homeland Security, Mejia was in the United States illegally at the time.
Mejia was arrested following the crash but released on bond the next month. He subsequently fled the country, drawing national attention to the case and criticism of federal immigration enforcement policies at the time. Then-presidential candidate Donald Trump frequently cited Root’s death while campaigning, criticizing the Obama administration’s handling of immigration enforcement.
In March 2025, during Trump’s second term, U.S. authorities tracked Mejia to Honduras. He was extradited to the United States and later sentenced to more than 20 years in prison.
On Tuesday night, Sarah Root’s father, Scott Root, and her brother will attend the president’s address as guests of Rep. Randy Feenstra, R-Iowa.
“I think that the message it sends is that, under President Trump, that we will find you,” Feenstra said. “If you’re an illegal criminal in this state or in this country, we will find you, and you will get deported, or you will be prosecuted.”
Feenstra noted that Scott Root was also present at the White House when Trump signed the Laken Riley Act into law. The legislation included an amendment named after Sarah Root, requiring Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to detain undocumented immigrants charged with seriously injuring or killing another person.
“Scott was at the White House with me during the signing of the bill,” Feenstra said. “And he got to know President Trump, so now to be there at the State of the Union — that is really, really a big deal.”
Trump has made immigration enforcement a central focus of his administration, arguing that stricter policies are necessary to prevent violent crimes committed by individuals in the country unlawfully. Critics, meanwhile, have cautioned against generalizing individual cases to broader populations.
