FORT MYERS, Fla. — Immigration advocates said the actions of Rolbert Joachin in Florida shouldn’t affect every Haitian in need of protected status in the United States.
Joachin, 40, who was born in Haiti, was behind bars on Friday after killing Nilufa Easmin, who was born in Bangladesh, on April 3 in Florida’s Lee County, according to the Fort Myers Police Department.
Easmin, 51, a mother of two, was working as a clerk at a gas station’s convenience store. Fort Myers detectives arrested Joachin hours later, and Lee County correctional deputies booked him.
“Surveillance footage showed that Joachin smashed the victim’s car windshield, approached her, and repeatedly hit her in the head with a hammer—violently killing her in broad daylight," a spokesperson from Homeland Security wrote in a statement on Tuesday.
Joachin had received a final order of removal in 2022, but former President Joe Biden’s administration allowed him to stay, according to DHS.
“This animal was allowed to stay here because the Biden Administration granted him, and all Haitians, Temporary Protective Status, a massively abused and fraudulent program which my Administration is working to terminate,” President Donald Trump wrote Thursday night on Truth Social.
The Trump administration announced on Friday that Joachin’s TPS was no longer valid, and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement had issued a detainer on Thursday.
“Deranged Liberal District Court Judges are standing in our way. This one killing should be enough for these Radical Judges to STOP impeding my Administration’s Immigration Policies, and allow us to END THIS SCAM ONCE AND FOR ALL,” Trump wrote Thursday night.
Attorney Fritznie Jarbath, whose parents were born in Haiti, is based in Miami-Dade County. She said the association is unfair.
“It’s not uncommon for this particular administration to identify one particular person from one group and try and push a narrative,” Jarbath said, adding that this reminded her of Trump’s assertion that Haitian migrants were eating dogs.
“While that was particularly debunked,” Jarbath said. “People kept looking at Haitians, thinking, ‘Is this true? Could this be true?’”
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