The family of Ruby Garcia, a 25-year-old woman who was murdered in Michigan last month, has accused Donald Trump of lying about having contact with them, and of using Garcia’s death to villainize undocumented migrants..
Police have indicated that they believe the suspect, Brandon Ortiz-Vite, and Garcia had been involved in a relationship and that Garcia was shot to death by Ortiz-Vite during a domestic dispute. At an event in Grand Rapids, Michigan, on Tuesday, Trump highlighted that the man accused of murdering Garcia was an undocumented migrant.
Trump called Garcia a “beautiful young woman [who] was savagely murdered by an illegal alien criminal.” The former president added that he’d been in contact with her family, who told him that “she had just the most contagious laughter and when she walked into a room, she lit up that room, and I’ve heard that from so many people.”
Garcia’s sister, Mavi Garcia, told ABC News on Wednesday that she “can confirm and assure you [Trump] did not speak with me or my immediate family.”
In a separate interview with NBC affiliate Target 8, Garcia added that “it was kind of shocking seeing that he had said that he had spoke with us, and misinforming people on live TV.”
“The focus should be on my sister right now, who she was in life. I want people to remember who she was in life,” Garcia said.
As noted by Media Matters, the language Trump used to describe Garcia on Tuesday may have been lifted from her obituary, portions of which were printed in the New York Post.
Republicans have made crimes committed by undocumented migrants a flashpoint in their 2024 electoral strategy. The accusations of a bloody migrant crime wave ravaging the nation are not supported by national crime statistics, which consistently show that migrants are less likely to commit crimes than U.S. born citizens.
Regardless of reality, Trump has amped up his focus on immigration, describing undocumented migrants on Tuesday as “animals” and “not human.” Earlier this year, the former president accused migrants of “poisoning the blood of our country.”
As previously reported by Rolling Stone, the former president and his allies are drawing up plans to use archaic zombie laws to initiate mass arrests and deportations of undocumented migrants should he retake the White House in November.
Trump’s rhetoric is not lost on Garcia’s family. “It’s always been about illegal immigrants,” Mavi Garcia told Target 8 when asked about Ortiz-Vite’s immigration status. “Nobody really speaks about when Americans do heinous crimes, and it’s kind of shocking why he would just bring up illegals. What about Americans who do heinous crimes like that?”
