During campaign events in Michigan and Wisconsin on Tuesday, Donald Trump used the recent death of a Grand Rapids woman killed by a man that immigration officials say entered the country illegally to amplify his inflammatory rhetoric on the campaign trail, accusing President Joe Biden of causing a “bloodbath” at the U.S.-Mexico border.

The woman, 25-year-old Ruby Garcia, was found dead on the side of a Grand Rapids highway on March 22. Police said she was in a romantic relationship with the suspect, Brandon Ortiz-Vite, who is a citizen of Mexico.

Immigration has emerged as the primary topic of Trump’s reelection campaign. He routinely exploits incidences involving immigrants to feed fears about Biden’s border policy, and on Tuesday, he attempted to tie Garcia’s murder to that of Laken Riley, a Georgia nursing student who investigators say was slain by a guy who entered the U.S. illegally.

While officials believe Riley’s death was random, Garcia’s situation is different. Trump’s team has alleged that Garcia was killed by an illegal immigrant “in a drunken carjacking attempt.” This conveys an impression of randomness that isn’t backed by facts.

On the night of March 22, a Grand Rapids police officer discovered Garcia on the side of a highway in Grand Rapids with several gunshot wounds to the head.

The suspect, Ortiz-Vite, informed officials that he shot Garcia during an argument. He said he then exited the vehicle, approached the driver’s side, and fatally shot her before fleeing the scene in her red Mazda, according to a probable cause affidavit.

Ortiz-Vite has since been charged with felony murder, open murder, carjacking, carrying a hidden weapon, and felony firearm possession. He was caught carrying a 9mm Taurus pistol, which Ortiz-Vite said he had used to shoot Garcia and that he had “purchased it illegally,” according to the affidavit.

Authorities said Garcia and Ortiz-Vite were in a “romantic relationship.” Kent County Prosecutor Chris Becker said in announcing the charges that “this is another case of a domestic violence homicide that we’ve seen, quite frankly, far too often over the last few years.”

The homicide got limited notice until a right-wing media site began alleging that Ortiz-Vite was an “illegal immigrant.” Republicans across Michigan began referencing the case to illustrate issues at the southern border. Soon later, Trump announced that he would visit Grand Rapids for a campaign event.

Trump originally accurately identified Garcia as a 25-year-old on Tuesday before subsequently stating that she was a 17-year-old. He further alleged that his administration had sent Ortiz-Vite “out of the country and crooked Joe Biden, took him back and let him back in and let him stay in, and he violently assassinated Ruby.”

But Trump has no way of knowing if Ortiz-Vite returned to the U.S. on Biden’s watch or his own. Ortiz-Vite had been deported in September 2020 following a drunk driving incident, a little over a year after his status with the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program expired, according to Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Immigration officials don’t know whether Ortiz-Vite reentered the nation in the last months of Trump’s administration or during Biden’s tenure.

“At an unknown date and location, Ortiz-Vite reentered the United States without inspection by an immigration official,” an ICE representative said in a statement.

Flanked by sheriffs and Republican lawmakers, Trump argued on Tuesday that Garcia’s death was a direct result of Biden’s border policy. He noted that Garcia’s “loved ones and community are left grieving for this incredible young woman.”

“When she went into a room, she lit up that room, and I’ve heard that from so many people,” added Trump. “I spoke to some of her family.”

Ruby’s sister, Mavi, who has become the spokesman for the family, has questioned the former president’s version, telling various publications that neither Trump nor anybody from his campaign has contacted anybody in her immediate family.

“It was shocking. I kind of quit watching it. I’d just seen it up until that—after I heard a few misinformations he stated, I simply stopped watching it,” Mavi Garcia told WOOD-TV in Grand Rapids.

At the ceremony, a Trump official could not identify who the former president had spoken with in the Garcia family. The campaign has not been explained since.

“The mainstream media is abhorrent for spending more time nitpicking President Trump’s words and obsessing over his ‘rhetoric’ than writing about the heinous crimes committed by Joe Biden’s illegal immigrants, like the one who killed Ruby Garcia,” said Trump’s national press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, in a statement.

Trump told conservative Michigan radio personality Justin Barclay on Monday that he’d like the Garcia family to be at his rally and requested Barclay to organize with them. Barclay told The Associated Press on Tuesday that he had not been in communication with the family.

“It’s always been about illegal immigrants,” Mavi Graci told WOOD-TV. “Nobody really speaks about when Americans commit heinous crimes, and it’s kind of shocking why he would just bring up illegals. What about Americans who commit horrific atrocities like that?”

Michigan Republicans have tried to link Garcia’s death to other crimes supposedly committed by immigrants to imply a disturbing pattern. On Tuesday, Trump referenced a succession of thefts in Oakland County houses authorities said were coordinated by “transnational gangs” and also the death of 22-year-old Leah Marie Gomez.

Gomez was assassinated in Grand Rapids last year by the father of her 1-year-old child, Mexican national Luis Bernal-Sosa. Gomez was sitting in her car with her daughter when Bernal-Sosa shot her multiple times, according to authorities.

“One is a tragedy, and two is a trend. West Michigan is not going to welcome illegal immigration, making us feel insecure in our community,” said Michigan GOP chair Pete Hoekstra last week.

But although Republicans have highlighted these high-profile crimes supposedly committed by persons in the country illegally, the most recent FBI figures reveal a continued decline in overall violent crime in the U.S., following a transient rise during the pandemic.

Many studies have shown immigrants are less likely to commit violent crimes than native-born people. One study released by the National Academy of Sciences, based on Texas Department of Public Safety statistics from 2012 to 2018, indicated that native-born U.S. residents were more than twice as likely to be arrested for violent crimes as persons in the country illegally.

Democrats have pointed to a bipartisan compromise to beef up border security that Trump helped derail by letting House Republicans know he opposed it.

“There was a solution on the table. It was actually the former president who encouraged Republicans to walk away from getting it done,” Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, said Monday. “I don’t have a lot of tolerance for political points when they continue to endanger our economy and, to some extent, our people, as we saw play out in Grand Rapids recently.”