The truth about what happened to Ruby Garcia is what should matter

Here are some facts about Garcia’s case: According to police, Garcia was in a romantic relationship with 25-year-old Brandon Ortiz-Vite, who was in the country illegally. On March 22, Garcia’s body was found on the side of a freeway in Grand Rapids. She had been shot to death.

The suspect was arrested and later confessed to the crime, authorities say. According to a USA TODAY report: “Ortiz-Vite came to the country ‘unlawfully’ as a child and was given legal status through the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, but that expired in 2019. He was deported in 2020, according to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, but returned illegally to the U.S. at ‘an unknown date.’ ”

Kent County prosecutor Chris Becker said of the crime: “This is another case of a domestic violence homicide that we’ve seen, quite frankly, far too often over the last few years.”

The defendant in this case was raised here and did have legal status for some time. He was deported in September 2020, while Trump was still president. We have no idea when he reentered the country. It might’ve happened during President Joe Biden’s term, or it could have happened while Trump was still in office.

What matters far more than where Ortiz-Vite was originally born is that he was able to illegally purchase a gun and then use it in an act of domestic violence.

I didn’t hear Trump, between his xenophobic rants, saying he would address the ease with which violent men can obtain firearms. I didn’t hear him mention how, according to the nonprofit Everytown for Gun Safety, an average of 70 women are shot and killed by an intimate partner each month. Trump was silent on the fact that, according to the Emory University School of Medicine, 5.3 million women are victims of intimate-partner violence each year.