Trump Uses Florida Clerk’s Killing to Push Haiti Immigration Crackdown

Donald Trump used the killing of a 51-year-old convenience-store clerk in Fort Myers to intensify his push against Haitian immigration, posting surveillance footage of the attack on Truth Social on April 10 and calling it one of the most vicious things people would ever see. He described the suspect as an “animal” and tied the case to attacks on Joe Biden, Democrats, and judges he said were blocking his deportation agenda.

The victim, Nilufa Easmin, was attacked outside a Chevron gas station on April 2 and died of her injuries. She had emigrated from Bangladesh, later became a naturalized U.S. citizen, and was remembered by supporters as a mother of two daughters who worked to support her family. The Bangladesh Association of Southwest Florida rallied around her family and helped raise support after her death, underscoring how a woman who built a life in Southwest Florida was reduced in national politics to a symbol in a broader immigration fight.

Police arrested the suspect the same day and charged him with homicide. Court and police records identified him as Rolbert Joachin, though some reports used the spelling Robert Joachim. Those records said he had little or no English and requested a Creole interpreter, but they did not list his nationality. Trump and the Department of Homeland Security said he was from Haiti.

The administration later said the suspect entered the United States illegally near Key West in August 2022, received a final order of removal in September 2022, and was later released under Biden-era policies before being granted Temporary Protected Status. Officials said TPS was revoked after the killing. The administration also said it had asked the Supreme Court to clear the way to end TPS for more than 350,000 Haitian immigrants, making Easmin’s death part of a larger legal and political campaign.

In the footage shared by DHS and circulated widely online, the suspect is seen smashing the car windshield, approaching Easmin, and repeatedly striking her in the head with a hammer. One account said the hammer blows landed six times. Immigration advocates argued that one person’s violence should not be used to stigmatize an entire community, and a Miami-based immigration attorney said the administration was cherry-picking a shocking crime to push a broader anti-immigrant narrative, echoing Trump’s earlier false claim that Haitian migrants were eating pets.

The case laid bare a familiar pattern: a specific act of violence, a grieving family, and a city crime scene were quickly folded into a national message about Haiti, deportation, and executive power.