Column: Trump is exploiting Ruby Garcia’s death to depict immigrants as ‘animals’

Good morning! There are 207 days until the election, and today we are not talking about abortion — even if everyone else is.

“The Democrats say, ‘Please don’t call them animals, they’re humans.’ I said, ‘No, they’re not humans. They’re not humans. They’re animals.’”

That was Trump last week in Grand Rapids, Mich., talking about immigrants. His speech made headlines not for that mouthful of racist barf but for a lie he told onstage: that he had spoken with the family of Ruby Garcia.

Mavi Garcia, her little sister, told media outlets that was untrue. It was a vulgar move for Trump to lie about speaking to a victim’s immediate family, but his dehumanization of immigrants as violent predators is more disturbing.

We’ll look at why. But first, the truth about Ruby Garcia.

Angry man, illegal gun

On March 22, Garcia was in the passenger seat of her red Mazda. Her boyfriend, Brandon Ortiz-Vite, was driving when they had an argument.

Ortiz-Vite allegedly pulled out an illegally purchased 9-millimeter pistol and shot Garcia multiple times in the head, according to court records. Before dragging Garcia out of the car and leaving her on the side of the freeway, he told authorities, he shot her again, because he thought she was still alive.

While it’s true that Ortiz-Vite is in the country illegally, his situation isn’t quite as Trump implied. Ortiz-Vite was a “Dreamer,” brought across the border as a child and granted access to the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. He apparently eventually lost that status, and was deported after multiple arrests for nonviolent crimes. He returned to the city he grew up in after sneaking back across the border.

After Garcia’s killing, Ortiz-Vite somehow ended up at a church 40 miles away, where the pastor allowed him to spend the night. The next day, she invited him to the Palm Sunday service. Somewhere in the middle of the sermon, Ortiz-Vite went to the bathroom, called 911 and confessed. Police arrested him outside the church.

What Ortiz-Vite has allegedly admitted to is a brutal cruelty that will haunt Garcia’s family forever. There is nothing in what I am saying that offers an excuse for his actions. But Ortiz-Vite is not a stand-in for all immigrants, and so far we have no reason to believe that his immigration status drove his actions.

Three Rubys each day

Sisters and brothers, this is not a crisis of hordes at the border. It is a crisis of violent men — one that we do not take seriously, even though it is deadly serious.

• 101 women were killed in domestic violence incidents in Michigan in 2022. And a weird statistic to collect, but one that shows even the nonfatal attacks are ugly: 57 victims had their teeth knocked out.
• Three women die in domestic violence incidents in the United States every day.
• Intimate partner violence accounts for 15% of all violent crime — let that sink in.
• And then there’s the illegal gun. The presence of a gun in a domestic violence situation increases the chances of a homicide by 500%. But I don’t hear Trump screaming about gun control.

And here’s the ultimate truth about Garcia: Ruby’s love for plants and traveling came nothing close to her affectionate smile that illuminated the room or contagious laughter.

That’s from her obituary. Ruby was laid to rest on March 29. May her god protect her, because we didn’t.

Trump invades Michigan

Michigan is, as you know, a battleground state. In 2020, Joe Biden won it by only 154,000 votes.

So every vote counts. But not every murder does.

This Michigander is in jail after his wife turned up dead. These five Wolverines are charged with keeping a woman chained to a pole in a basement for a month before killing her. This fine fellow was just convicted of killing a teenager, then killing his girlfriend to keep her quiet.

Out of the many recent fatal atrocities in Michigan, only Garcia’s fits Trump’s political agenda.

It embodies the fear that “hordes” of immigrants are a threat to “true” Americans, especially women.

And it also plays off the conspiracy that there is an elite force (Democrats, lizard people, Hollywood, Biden, all of the above) bringing those vicious immigrants into the United States so they can illegally vote in between committing violent crimes.

Trump’s exploitation of Garcia’s death isn’t exactly new — just a refinement of a tactic he used in his 2016 campaign with the killing of Kate Steinle in San Francisco.

Steinle was shot by a Mexican man who was in the U.S. illegally, who minutes prior had found the stolen gun of a Bureau of Land Management officer. He accidentally discharged it when he picked it up, and the single bullet hit Steinle in the back.

Trump used the case to bash sanctuary cities and call for the building of his big, beautiful wall, but he hadn’t quite honed his message of terror.

Now, along with Garcia‘s slaying, he has been stumping on the tragic killing of Laken Riley, a 22-year-old nursing student in Georgia who was allegedly killed by a Venezuelan man in the country illegally in what authorities are describing as a crime of opportunity.

Trump actually did meet with Riley’s family. But as with Garcia‘s family, Riley’s parents want her remembered for the smart, kind, beautiful woman she was. Not politics.

“It makes me angry,” her father told NBC news. “She should be raised up for the person that she is.”

But with another tight race entering its last months, Trump needs more than just hordes. Even illegally voting hordes.

With Ruby Garcia and Laken Riley, he inflames the urgency of an already volatile issue by adding a tried-and-true anxiety: They are not just coming — they are coming for the women!

What else you should be reading

The must-read: Trump Allies Have a Plan to Hurt Biden’s Chances: Elevate Outsider Candidates

The California insider: How a crypto pioneer lost $1 million to the Gavin Newsom recall

The L.A. Times Special: California’s housing crisis is hitting Nevada hard. Could that help Trump win a crucial state?

Stay Golden,
Anita Chabria

P.S. Send help!

This is Meep, the newest member of my family. He’s a differently abled Munchkin kitten found on the mean streets of Stockton with his umbilical cord still attached.

Yes, he’s cute. But that’s not the point.

I’m two weeks into this newsletter and I am reduced to cat photos. I need your help!

We’d like to fill this space with interesting visuals — political art, images from campaigns, sights that inspire you, scare you, or just make you laugh. I’ll even take your pet photos.

So please — send me your stuff: Anita.Chabria@latimes.com.

Meep the cat, Sacramento, April 9, 2024.

(Anita Chabria / Los Angeles Times)

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