Former President Donald Trump made a campaign stop in Grand Rapids on Tuesday, April 2 at Devos Place Convention Center, urging supporters to aid his efforts to “Stop Biden’s border bloodbath.” Trump made his visit in response to the March 22 death of Ruby Garcia, a 25-year-old woman who was shot and killed in Grand Rapids last month. Brandon Ortiz-Vite, an undocumented man from Mexico, confessed to fatally shooting Garcia and is expected to be in court next week.
Ortiz-Vite was a Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipient, whose citizenship expired in 2019, leading to his deportation in 2020. However, at an unknown point in time, Oritz-Vite re-entered the country illegally. While originally suspected by police to be her boyfriend, the family of Garcia told WOOD-TV that the two were just friends.
Joined on stage by various Michigan law enforcement officials, Trump spoke on two instances of what he deemed to be “Biden migrant crime” that were specific to Grand Rapids. He spoke on the death of Garcia as well as Leah Gomez, a mother who was allegedly shot and killed in front of her child by an undocumented man in Grand Rapids in May of 2023.
When Trump brought up Garcia, he mistakenly said that she was 17-years-old.
“On March 22 (Ortiz-Vite) shot 17-year-old Ruby, actually she was a beautiful, beautiful woman,” said Trump.
The presumptive Republican nominee made a claim that he had spoken with some of Garcia’s family members, however, Mavi Garcia, sister of Ruby Garcia, said that was not true in a statement put out by WOOD-TV.
When discussing these instances of violence during his press conference, Trump unapologetically referred to undocumented immigrants as “illegal alien animals.”
“The Democrats say ‘Please don’t call them animals, they’re humans’ I say ‘no, they’re not humans. They are not humans, they’re animals,” Trump said. “… I’ll use the word animal because that’s what they are.”
Many Democrats, such as United States Senator Debbie Stabenow, D-Lansing, condemned Trump for speaking about Garcia’s death.
“Let me just start today, really underscoring the fact that Ruby Garcia’s death was a horrible tragedy, and so is every life taken by violence, including domestic violence, regardless of who commits the crime, period,” Stabenow said. “But unfortunately, Donald Trump and MAGA Republicans are hell-bent on exploiting Ruby’s death for their own politics. Frankly, I think it’s shameful.”
During the press conference, Trump was joined on stage by Police Officers Association of Michigan (POAM) President James Tignanelli, and officially received the POAM 2024 presidential endorsement.
“We were there in 2020 and I’ll tell you, we’re here in 2024, and today on behalf of 12,000 law enforcement people that the Police Officers Association of Michigan represents, we want you to accept our endorsement for President of the United States,” Tignanelli said.
While many people gathered outside, both in support and protest of Trump, the former president could be heard wrapping up his speech on the DeVos Place stage, delivering a vaguely ominous statement that is becoming more and more frequent at his tour stops.
“If we don’t win on Nov. 5, this could be the last election we ever have,” he said.
