Ruby Garcia, who was found dead on the side of a Grand Rapids highway on March 22, according to local news reports, was one of several victims of high-profile crimes purportedly committed by illegal immigrants that Republicans have sought to highlight.
The police have said that she was dating the man charged with her death, Brandon Ortiz-Vite, 25, who first entered the country illegally as a child, according to a statement from US Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
After Mr. Ortiz-Vite was arrested on charges unrelated to immigration in August 2020, he was found inadmissible and deported to Mexico in September 2020, during Mr. Trump’s administration, an ICE spokesman said. The agency said Mr. Ortiz-Vite came back to the United States “at an unknown date and location.”
Court records show that Mr. Ortiz-Vite was charged with homicide and other crimes in the case involving Ms. Garcia, and will appear in court on April 9.
At a campaign event in Georgia last month, Mr. Trump met with the family of Laken Riley, a 22-year-old nursing student at Augusta University, in Georgia, whose body was found in February in a wooded area on the campus of the University of Georgia in Athens. The man charged with her murder is an undocumented immigrant from Venezuela, and Republicans have used Ms. Riley’s death to rally around calls for additional border security measures.
