But Garcia’s sister, who serves as the family’s press secretary, said Tuesday that Trump and his campaign have not contacted her or other next of kin and sought to make the incident part of a call for border enforcement. He criticized the efforts of Republican presidential candidates.
“It was always about illegal immigration,” the victim’s sister, Mavi Garcia, told local news station Target 8. “It’s kind of shocking why he keeps bringing up illegal immigrants when no one really talks about when Americans commit heinous crimes. What happens to Americans who commit such heinous crimes? mosquito?”
The Trump campaign had no comment Tuesday. President Trump did not mention that he spoke with Garcia’s family at a rally in Wisconsin later Tuesday. Mavi Garcia confirmed to the Washington Post that Trump and his campaign have never spoken to the family.
Mr. Trump has made immigration a central part of his second-term campaign, increasingly linking the issue to crime, including several high-profile killings attributed to police of illegal immigrants, including Laken Riley in Georgia; Garcia, now of Grand Rapids, spoke at length at the rally. The city is located in one of the most competitive counties in one of the few states that could decide the presidential election. The defendant in Garcia’s case, Brandon Ortiz Vito, 25, has an arrest record and was deported in September 2020 under the Trump administration and has since returned to the United States.
Democrats touted evidence that illegal immigrants do not commit more crimes than legal residents and framed Garcia’s case in Michigan as evidence of the dangers of domestic violence. Authorities say the suspect was on a date on March 22 when he shot and killed Ruby Garcia and left her on the side of the road.
Garcia’s family distanced itself from the political firestorm surrounding her death in the days leading up to Trump’s event, limiting its public eulogies to public.
But Mavi Garcia expanded on Tuesday after calling Trump’s comments “shocking.”
“He didn’t talk to any of us, so it was shocking in a way to see him talk to us and say on live TV that he gave people false information,” she said. told 8. “She was in Mexico,” she said, “but now we should focus on what happened to her sister before she died.”
Ortiz-Vite is charged with murder and other crimes.
By contrast, the family of Riley, the young woman murdered in Georgia, has embraced Trump. Riley’s girlfriend’s parents met with Trump last month before he took the stage at a rally in Rome, Georgia, and Riley’s mother said Biden had toyed with her daughter’s name during the State of the Union address. It is criticized as such.
Riley, a nursing student, was killed by Jose Ibarra, a Venezuelan national who entered the United States illegally in 2022, authorities said. Ibarra is charged with murder.
Trump sought to highlight both Garcia and Riley’s cases at an event Tuesday in Grand Rapids, where he spoke about immigration after meeting with members of law enforcement. A graph displayed on a large screen highlighted the sharp rise in southern border crossings since President Biden took office. President Trump reiterated his promise to reduce illegal immigration and implement mass deportations.
President Trump said Tuesday that Riley was “savagely murdered by an illegal exotic animal.” “Democrats are saying, ‘Don’t call them animals, like humans.'” I said, “No, they’re not humans.” …They are animals. Nancy Pelosi told me that. She said, “When you talk about these people, don’t use the word animal.” I said, ‘Let’s use the word animal, because that’s what the animal is. ”
After the Biden campaign emphasized the reference to “animals,” the Trump campaign sought clarification and suggested it on social media. post “Animals” refer to people who commit murder.
Isaac Arnsdorf contributed to this report.
