President Donald Trump ignited a fresh firestorm Thursday by sharing a graphic video of a fatal hammer attack to his millions of followers on Truth Social. The President is leveraging the brutal incident to justify his administration’s sweeping mass deportation policy and his ongoing legal battle to terminate Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for hundreds of thousands of immigrants.
The video, which Trump warned was “not for children,” depicts the April 3 slaying of a woman outside a gas station in Fort Myers. According to police reports, the victim was struck repeatedly with a mallet and pronounced dead at the scene.
Authorities arrested Robert Joachin, a 31-year-old Haitian national, and charged him with first-degree murder. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) records indicate Joachin entered the United States in August 2022, receiving TPS under the Biden administration as Haiti grappled with systemic gang violence and economic collapse.
In his post, Trump characterized Joachin as an “animal” and blamed “Crooked Joe Biden” for his release into the country. “If you import the Third World, you become the Third World,” Trump wrote, framing the murder as a direct consequence of Democratic border policies.
The administration’s focus on this case coincides with a high-stakes legal offensive. In March, the White House petitioned the Supreme Court to allow the immediate revocation of TPS for approximately 350,000 Haitian immigrants. This move follows a Wednesday ruling by a federal judge that blocked the administration from ending similar protections for Ethiopian nationals currently residing in the U.S.
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The President’s rhetoric mirrors his 2024 campaign strategy, which frequently highlighted high-profile crimes involving immigrants to mobilize his base. While the White House maintains that these incidents necessitate immediate mass deportations and the construction of detention camps, empirical data presents a different reality regarding public safety.
Independent research, including a recent report from the Cato Institute, confirms that native-born U.S. citizens are 267% more likely to be incarcerated than immigrants. Multiple longitudinal studies of arrest data indicate that immigrants—regardless of their legal status—commit violent crimes at significantly lower rates than U.S.-born Americans.
Despite these statistics, DHS confirmed that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) assisted local police in Joachin’s arrest. The agency stated that Joachin will be deported regardless of the outcome of his criminal trial, signaling the administration’s commitment to expedited removals for non-citizens involved in violent offenses.
