Trump to campaign Tuesday in Grand Rapids, address border

Former President Donald Trump will visit Grand Rapids on Tuesday, his campaign announced Thursday.

Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee for president in November, will speak at the DeVos Place Convention Center at 2:30 p.m., according to a news release.

Trump will address “Biden’s border bloodbath,” the release said.

Michigan is seen as a key battleground state in November.

Trump last visited Michigan on Feb. 17, when he held a campaign event inside an airport hangar in Oakland County’s Waterford.

President Joe Biden, who is seeking a second term, last visited Michigan on March 14, when he made stops in the Saginaw area.

Michigan Republicans have been hammering Biden over undocumented migrants crossing the U.S. border with Mexico, particularly after a recent homicide in the Grand Rapids area in which the person accused of the crime returned to the U.S. illegally after being deported in 2020. Brandon Ortiz-Vite, 25, is charged in connection with the fatal shooting of Ruby Garcia, also 25. Police have described the case as one of domestic violence.

“West Michigan suburban families are now facing the fact that the worst issues of the Southern Border have now made their way into our backyard,” Michigan Republican Party Chairman Pete Hoekstra said in a news release responding to Trump’s announced visit.

Also Thursday, GOP state Rep. Matt Maddock, R-Milford, faced criticism and ridicule after he tweeted Wednesday night about “illegal invaders” aboard buses receiving police escorts from Detroit Metropolitan Airport. The buses Maddock suspected were carrying migrants were in fact carrying NCAA basketball teams arriving in Detroit for the Sweet 16 round of March Madness.

A bipartisan Senate bill aimed at strengthening border security failed in Congress after Trump spoke out against it in February.