White House officials are leaning hard into a violent Florida murder case as Donald Trump gets ready to rally in Fort Myers, using the tragedy to hammer home their argument that border policy has real-world consequences. The case has become a fresh flashpoint in the fight over immigration, enforcement, and the political fallout from years of loose federal control.
Trump is set to speak Friday afternoon at Florida Gulf Coast University’s Alico Arena, with the White House eager to keep attention on his immigration record and away from the usual campaign chatter. The setting matters too, since the killing took place in the same city where the president is expected to fire up supporters ahead of the Nov. 3 midterm elections.
White House spokeswoman Lauren Bis said the attack shows exactly what happens when dangerous people are allowed in and then left under weak supervision. “A few short months ago, an illegal alien barbarically killed a woman outside of a gas station in Fort Myers by hitting her on the head with a hammer multiple times,” she said.
Trump also revisited the case after it first shocked the country, blasting the video of the attack and blaming the Biden administration for letting the suspect into the United States. “This heinous murderer was RELEASED into the country by the Biden administration. Not only did the Biden administration release him into the country, but they then gave him Temporary Protected Status. This is the result of Democrats open-border policies. If you import the third world, you become the third world.”
The victim was a Florida mother and gas station clerk who was attacked in broad daylight outside a Fort Myers gas station in April. Haitian national Rolbert Joachim is accused of repeatedly striking her in the head with a hammer, in a killing that left investigators, local residents, and immigration officials scrambling for answers.
According to the Department of Homeland Security, surveillance video showed Joachim smashing the woman’s windshield before moving in and attacking her. The victim, a mother of two teenage daughters, died from the assault, and the violence of the scene made the case especially hard to shake.
Fort Myers police brought in Immigration and Customs Enforcement to help track him down, and Joachim was later arrested on Mango Street, DHS said. Officials also said he entered the country in August 2022, was released under the Biden administration, and had a final removal order issued by a federal judge that same year.
The TPS angle has fueled even more outrage. Joachim later received Temporary Protected Status, which expired in 2024, despite the fact that the protection is meant to be temporary and does not create a path to permanent residency.
Republicans have seized on the case as proof that the system was never built to handle the scale of enforcement failures seen in recent years. The White House is clearly betting that the brutality of this murder will cut through the noise and leave a lasting impression on voters who are already worried about crime and border security.
That message lands in a state Trump has turned deep red in three straight presidential runs. His margin in Florida has grown from a razor-thin win in 2016 to a blowout in 2024, and Lee County, where Fort Myers sits, backed him by a wide margin as well.
The rally also comes as Trump keeps crisscrossing the country to help Republican candidates and keep momentum rolling into the midterms. Florida may be safely in his corner, but the White House is treating the Fort Myers case like a warning siren, not just for one city, but for the broader immigration fight that keeps swallowing up the headlines.
