GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — At campaign events in Michigan and Wisconsin on Tuesday, Donald Trump used the recent death of a Grand Rapids woman, killed by a man who immigration officials say entered the country illegally, to amplify his inflammatory rhetoric on the campaign trail and become president Accusing Joe Biden of causing a “carnage” at the US-Mexico border.
The woman, 25-year-old Ruby Garcia, was found dead on the side of a highway in Grand Rapids on March 22. Police say she was in a romantic relationship with the suspect, Brandon Ortiz-Vite, who is a citizen of Mexico.
Immigration has become the centerpiece of Trump’s re-election campaign. He regularly highlights incidents involving immigrants to stoke concerns about Biden’s border policies and on Tuesday tried to link Garcia’s death to that of Laken Riley, a Georgia nursing student who officials say was killed by a man entering the U.S. illegally had entered.
Although authorities believe Riley’s death was random, Garcia’s case is different.
Here’s what we know and where Trump’s claims strayed from the truth.
Trump’s campaign has said Garcia was killed by an illegal immigrant “in a drunken carjacking attempt.” This conveys a sense of arbitrariness that is not supported by facts.
On the night of March 22, a Grand Rapids police officer discovered Garcia on the side of a Grand Rapids highway with multiple gunshot wounds to the head.
The suspect, Ortiz-Vite, told authorities he shot Garcia after an argument. He said he then got out of the vehicle, approached the driver’s side and fatally shot her before fleeing the scene in her red Mazda, according to a probable cause statement.
Ortiz-Vite has since been charged with murder, open murder, carjacking, carrying a concealed weapon and possession of a firearm. He was arrested with a 9mm Taurus handgun, which Ortiz-Vite said he used to shoot Garcia and that he “illegally purchased it,” according to the affidavit.
Authorities say Garcia and Ortiz-Vite were in a “romantic relationship.” Kent County Prosecutor Chris Becker said in announcing the charges that “this is yet another case of domestic violence homicide that, quite frankly, we’ve seen far too often in recent times. the last few years.”
The murder received minimal attention until a conservative media outlet began reporting that Ortiz-Vite was an “illegal immigrant.” Republicans across Michigan began citing the case to highlight problems at the southern border. Shortly afterwards, Trump announced he would travel to Grand Rapids for a campaign event.
Trump initially correctly identified Garcia on Tuesday before later saying she was 17 years old. He also said his administration threw Ortiz-Vite “out of the country and corrupt Joe Biden took him back and let him back in and let him stay in and he brutally murdered Ruby.”
But Trump has no way of knowing whether Ortiz-Vite returned to the US under Biden’s care or under his own supervision. Ortiz-Vite was deported in September 2020 after a DUI arrest, just over a year after his status with the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program expired, according to Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Immigration officials do not know whether Ortiz-Vite reentered the country in the final months of Trump’s presidency or during Biden’s term.
“On an unknown date and location, Ortiz-Vite re-entered the United States without inspection by an immigration officer,” an ICE spokesperson said in a statement.
Flanked by sheriffs and Republican officials, Trump claimed Tuesday that Garcia’s death was a direct result of Biden’s border policies. He added that Garcia’s “loved ones and community mourn this incredible young woman.”
“When she walked into a room, she lit up that room and I’ve heard that from so many people,” Trump said. “I spoke to some of her family.”
Ruby’s sister, Mavi, who has become the family’s spokesperson, has disputed the former president’s account, telling multiple media outlets that neither Trump nor anyone from his campaign has contacted anyone in her immediate family.
“It was shocking. I kind of stopped doing it. I just took that into account — after hearing some misinformation, he said, I just stopped doing it,” Mavi Garcia told WOOD-TV in Grand Rapids.
At the event, a Trump spokesperson could not identify who the former president had spoken to within the Garcia family. The campaign has not provided any clarity since.
“The mainstream media is disgusting because they spend more time nitpicking President Trump’s words and obsessing over his ‘rhetoric’ than writing about the heinous crimes committed by Joe Biden’s illegal immigrants, like the ones Ruby Garcia,” said Karoline Leavitt, Trump’s national press secretary. in a statement.
Trump told conservative Michigan radio host Justin Barclay on Monday that he would like the Garcia family to attend his event and asked Barclay to coordinate with them. Barclay told the Associated Press on Tuesday that he had had no contact with the family.
“It was always about illegal immigrants,” Mavi Graci told WOOD-TV. “No one really talks about when Americans commit heinous crimes, and it’s kind of shocking why he would just bring up illegal immigrants. What about Americans who commit such heinous crimes? ”
Michigan Republicans have tried to link Garcia’s death to other crimes allegedly committed by immigrants to highlight a troubling trend. Trump on Tuesday reported a series of robberies at homes in Oakland County that authorities said were orchestrated by “transnational gangs,” as well as the death of 22-year-old Leah Marie Gomez.
Gomez was killed last year in Grand Rapids by the father of her 1-year-old child, Mexican national Luis Bernal-Sosa. Gomez was sitting in her car with her daughter when Bernal-Sosa shot her multiple times, according to police.
“One is a tragedy, two is a trend. West Michigan is not going to accept illegal immigrants who make us feel unsafe in our community,” Michigan GOP Chairman Pete Hoekstra said last week.
But while Republicans have emphasized these high-profile crimes allegedly committed illegally by individuals in the country, the latest FBI statistics show a continued decline in overall violent crime in the US, after a temporary increase during the pandemic .
Many studies have shown that immigrants are less likely to commit violent crimes than native-born citizens. A study published by the National Academy of Sciences, based on data from the Texas Department of Public Safety from 2012 to 2018, found that native-born U.S. residents are more than twice as likely to be arrested for violent crimes than people who live illegally stay in the country.
Democrats have pointed to a bipartisan compromise to strengthen border security, which Trump helped derail by signaling to House Republicans that he opposed it.
“There was a solution on the table. It was actually the former president who encouraged Republicans to abandon it,” Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, said Monday. “I don’t have much tolerance for political points when it continues to endanger our economy and, to some extent, our people, as we recently saw happen in Grand Rapids.”
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Associated Press writer Jill Colvin contributed from New York.