The White House is blaming Biden-era border releases and Temporary Protected Status for a Haitian illegal immigrant’s hammer murder of a Florida mother, as President Trump heads to Fort Myers for a midterm rally.
White House spokeswoman Lauren Bis told Fox News Digital the April killing outside a Fort Myers gas station was the direct result of prior open-border policies, and she tied the case to the administration’s push to restore immigration enforcement before Trump speaks Friday at Florida Gulf Coast University’s Alico Arena.
Prosecutors charged Haitian national Rolbert Joachim with first-degree murder and said they will seek the death penalty in the death of a gas station clerk described as a mother of two teenage daughters. Surveillance video, as described by federal officials, showed the attacker smashing the woman’s windshield and then repeatedly striking her in the head with a hammer in broad daylight.
Bis framed the crime in blunt terms and named the prior administration.
"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. 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."
That message lands as Trump prepares a 2 p.m. Friday appearance in Lee County, a deep-red stretch of Southwest Florida that backed him with 63.6% in 2024 while Kamala Harris took 35.3%. Statewide, his Florida margin grew from roughly one point in 2016 to more than 13 points in 2024. The midterms fall on Nov. 3.
Federal records summarized by DHS and reported across outlets show Joachim entered the United States in August 2022 and was released into the country under Biden administration policies. A federal judge issued a final removal order that same year. He later received Temporary Protected Status, a designation that lets eligible foreign nationals stay and work temporarily because of conditions in their home countries but does not confer permanent residency. That TPS expired in 2024. He remained.
Fox News reported DHS acting assistant secretary Lauren Bis tying the release decisions straight to the victim’s death, saying reckless immigration policies cost the woman her life after the suspect was freed and then handed TPS.
Fort Myers police enlisted ICE to help find him. Officers arrested Joachim on Mango Street. ICE lodged an immigration detainer, and DHS said he would face deportation regardless of how the criminal case ends, an enforcement posture that fits the broader ICE crackdown on illegal immigrants now underway nationwide.
Local charging details filled in the human cost. The New York Post identified the victim as 51-year-old Nilufa Easmin and the defendant as 40-year-old Rolbert Joachin, reporting that a Lee County grand jury indicted him in the April attack at the Fort Myers gas station after she confronted him for smashing her car window. He fled before his arrest.
State Attorney Amira Fox announced the death-penalty decision in stark language.
"This crime was so violent, so extreme, so unwarranted. It is something that once seen, is never to be forgotten... This defendant entered the United States illegally and brutally ended the life of a mother simply at her job, working to provide for her family... He will be punished to the fullest extent of the law. We will seek the death penalty in this case."
In an April Truth Social post, Trump condemned the killing and pointed at judicial interference with enforcement.
"This one killing should be enough for these Radical Judges to STOP impeding my Administration’s Immigration Policies."
He separately called the surveillance video "one of the most vicious things you will ever see." The New York Post also carried a longer Trump statement blaming "Crooked Joe Biden" and congressional Democrats for releasing "An Illegal Alien Criminal from Haiti" who then beat an innocent woman to death with a hammer at a Florida gas station.
White House materials cited in the coverage claim Trump’s immigration crackdown produced 17 straight months without releases at the border and the deportation of more than 3 million people who were in the country illegally. Related enforcement headlines in the same cycle pointed to plunging border apprehensions and long stretches with zero releases, results the administration is putting in front of voters as Trump enforcement drives historic drops from the prior surge.
Joachim’s path, illegal entry, release, a final removal order, then TPS that outlasted the order until it expired in 2024, matches the pattern ICE has flagged while preparing larger actions against Haitians as protected status sunsets. That is the same pressure point covered when ICE readied enforcement push against Haitians tied to expiring TPS.
The detainer in this case also underlines a second failure mode: when local governments refuse to honor ICE holds, criminal illegal immigrants walk back onto the street. House investigators have already documented that problem in places that snubbed hundreds of ICE detainers and released offenders anyway. Fort Myers did the opposite, it called ICE in.
Policy follow-through now reaches beyond the border fence. Eligibility rules for public benefits have tightened as well, including Medicaid restrictions ending coverage for noncitizens, part of the same shift toward prioritizing citizens and lawful residents.
The core facts are not complicated. A mother of two was at her job. An illegal immigrant who should have been removed in 2022 was still free in 2026. Video captured a windshield smashed and a hammer used on her head in daylight. Prosecutors want death. ICE wants him out when the criminal case ends. The White House says the Biden release-and-TPS sequence made the outcome possible.
Motive for the attack itself has not been publicly stated in the available reporting. Victim’s full personal history beyond her work and her daughters was not detailed. Exact station address and clock time were not published in the packages used here. What is on the record is enough for the policy fight Trump is bringing to Alico Arena: final orders that do not result in removal, temporary status that becomes a long stay, and a dead Florida clerk.
Lee County voters already delivered a landslide for tighter borders in 2024. The administration is reminding them, and the judges still blocking removals, what happens when the paperwork says "deport" and the street still says "stay."
Secure borders and enforced removal orders are not slogans. They are the difference between a mother finishing her shift and a hammer in a Fort Myers parking lot.
