President Donald Trump shared a graphic video Thursday of a fatal hammer attack in Florida, utilizing the footage to escalate his administration’s campaign for mass deportations and the termination of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for hundreds of thousands of immigrants.
The video, posted to Truth Social on April 9, depicts a woman being killed with a mallet outside a Fort Myers gas station. Authorities identified the suspect as Robert Joachin, a Haitian national who entered the United States in August 2022. Joachin currently faces first-degree murder charges for the April 3 slaying.
Trump leveraged the brutal incident to disparage current immigration protocols and the previous administration’s policies. In his post, the President described Joachin as an “animal” and claimed the suspect was “released into our Country by… Crooked Joe Biden.”
“I felt I had an obligation to put it up so that people can see what Democrats are protecting,” Trump wrote, warning his followers that “if you import the Third World, you become the Third World.”
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) confirmed that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) assisted in Joachin’s arrest. Officials stated he will be deported regardless of the criminal trial’s outcome.
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The administration’s focus on the Fort Myers case coincides with a high-stakes legal battle over the future of Haitian immigrants in the U.S. In March, the Trump administration petitioned the Supreme Court to allow the termination of TPS for approximately 350,000 Haitians.
These protections were originally granted due to extreme civil unrest, gang violence, and economic collapse in Haiti. While a federal judge recently blocked efforts to end similar protections for Ethiopians, the administration continues to push for the dismantling of the program as part of its broader immigration crackdown and the establishment of detention camps.
The President’s use of high-profile crimes to shape immigration policy follows a pattern established during his 2024 campaign, which frequently highlighted isolated incidents to justify restrictive measures.
However, criminological data remains at odds with the administration’s rhetoric. According to a 2025 report by the Cato Institute, native-born U.S. citizens are 267% more likely to be incarcerated than immigrants. Multiple longitudinal studies, including a 2020 analysis of arrest data, consistently show that immigrants—including those without legal status—commit crimes at significantly lower rates than native-born Americans.
Despite these statistics, the White House maintains that mass removals are a matter of national security, signaled by the President’s commitment to highlighting violent offenses involving foreign nationals.
