Ruby Garcia’s Convicted Killer Is Suing Donald Trump for $75 Million — Over Being Called an Illegal Alien Murderer in a Campaign Ad.
Brandon Ortiz-Vite, 27, is serving 39 to 102 years in a Michigan prison for murdering his girlfriend, 25-year-old Ruby Garcia, in Grand Rapids in March 2024. That case is closed — he pleaded guilty, a judge sentenced him, and nothing about it is under appeal. What isn’t closed is the lawsuit he just filed against President Donald Trump (R), handwritten from a cell at the Chippewa Correctional Facility, demanding $75,500,000, a public apology, and U.S. citizenship.
According to the complaint, Trump’s 2024 campaign turned Ortiz-Vite’s mugshot and case into a symbol of “Biden’s border bloodbath” — and that, he argues, violated his rights. He wants a federal judge to order Trump to apologize, pay him millions, cover his court costs, provide free counseling, and grant him the citizenship he lost any legal claim to when he was deported in 2020.
Ortiz-Vite’s guilt in Garcia’s murder is not in dispute; he admitted it under oath. The civil suit is different — a fresh, unresolved, pro se complaint that a former federal prosecutor says is unlikely to survive the first stage of judicial screening, let alone reach a jury.
- $75,500,000 — punitive damages, court costs, and free counseling Ortiz-Vite is demanding from Trump — plus U.S. citizenship and a public apology, per the July 13, 2026 complaint
- 39 to 102 years — the prison sentence Ortiz-Vite is serving for Ruby Garcia's murder — Kent County Circuit Judge Mark A. Trusock
- 2020 — the year ICE deported Ortiz-Vite to Mexico; he reentered the U.S. illegally before killing Garcia four years later — ICE Detroit
- Pro se — Ortiz-Vite filed the handwritten lawsuit himself, from a state prison cell, with no attorney — U.S. District Court, W.D. Michigan
Garcia and Ortiz-Vite were arguing inside her car on U.S. 131 near Grand Rapids on March 22, 2024, when he shot her multiple times, pushed her body out along the roadway, and drove off in the vehicle. He abandoned the car roughly 75 miles away in South Haven and vanished for two days before calling 911 himself to confess.
He pleaded guilty on September 23, 2024, to second-degree murder, carjacking, felony firearm, and carrying a concealed weapon. On November 7, 2024, Kent County Circuit Judge Mark A. Trusock sentenced him to 37 to 100 years on the murder count, plus a consecutive two-year firearm term — 39 to 102 years total. “You are a cold-blooded murderer,” Trusock told him at sentencing. None of that is in dispute, on appeal, or up for relitigation in the new lawsuit. It is a closed case.
Ortiz-Vite was not supposed to be in the country at all. ICE’s Detroit field office arrested him on August 31, 2020; an immigration judge ordered him removed less than a month later, on September 24, 2020; and ICE deported him to Mexico on September 29, 2020. He reentered the United States illegally at some point afterward — ICE has confirmed only that he “reentered the United States without inspection” before killing Garcia nearly four years later.
That timeline is why Garcia’s murder became a national campaign issue. Trump visited Grand Rapids in April 2024, days after the killing, and cited the case by name as an example of what he called “Biden’s border bloodbath” — a previously deported man, back in the country illegally, accused of murdering an American woman. Campaign ads that followed used Ortiz-Vite’s mugshot alongside other cases nationwide.
Brandon Ortiz-Vite was convicted of Ruby Garcia's murder in 2024. Now he's asking a federal judge to order President Trump to apologize for mentioning his case.
On July 13, 2026, Ortiz-Vite filed a pro se civil complaint in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Michigan — Case No. 2:26-cv-00156-JMB-MV — naming Trump and White House Communications Director Steven Cheung, who served as Trump’s 2024 campaign spokesperson, as defendants. No attorney represents him; the filing is handwritten from prison.
The complaint asks for $75,500,000 in punitive damages, reimbursement of his court costs, free counseling for the “emotional distress” he says the campaign caused him, and — most unusually — an order granting him U.S. citizenship and a formal public apology from Trump. Ortiz-Vite writes that being singled out by name and photograph “belittled” him and “shattered [his] dignity,” reducing him, in his telling, to “a category” based on “race... case, and immigration status.”
The lawsuit does not dispute that Ortiz-Vite killed Garcia. It argues only that Trump’s public description of him — accurate as it was — caused him harm worth $75,500,000 and a U.S. passport.
Grand Rapids attorney and former federal prosecutor Matthew Borgula reviewed the filing and doesn’t expect it to survive. Pro se lawsuits filed by prisoners must be screened by a judge under 28 U.S.C. § 1915A before the defendants are ever formally served, and Borgula says this one has bigger problems than procedure alone.
“Based on my experience, I do not think this lawsuit is going anywhere. Presidential immunity covers official acts... but this suit fails for more basic reasons. The statements were substantially true, and being publicly embarrassed by a politician isn't a constitutional violation. This case should end before it begins.”
Matthew Borgula · Grand Rapids attorney, former federal prosecutor
Presidential immunity aside, Borgula’s underlying point is a simple one: Trump described Ortiz-Vite as a previously deported, twice-illegal immigrant convicted of murdering an American woman — which is exactly what a Kent County guilty plea and sentence established him to be. As of the most recent reporting reviewed for this piece, the case had not yet been screened or served, and neither Trump nor Cheung had filed a response.
Donald Trump (R) — President; named as lead defendant over 2024 campaign remarks and ads describing Ortiz-Vite's case.
Steven Cheung — White House Communications Director; was Trump's 2024 campaign spokesperson; named as co-defendant.
Kent County Circuit Judge Mark A. Trusock — sentenced Ortiz-Vite to 39 to 102 years in the underlying murder case; called him "a cold-blooded murderer."
Tudor Dixon (R) — former Michigan GOP gubernatorial nominee; called the lawsuit "arrogance and entitlement."
Matthew Borgula — Grand Rapids attorney, former federal prosecutor; says the suit "should end before it begins."
The lawsuit drew fast, pointed reaction from Michigan Republicans who watched Garcia’s case become a flashpoint two years ago. Tudor Dixon (R), the party’s 2022 gubernatorial nominee, told Fox News Digital the filing was exactly the kind of entitlement conservatives warned would follow a soft-on-crime posture toward illegal immigration:
“As long as we have Democrats jetting to other countries to coddle criminal illegal aliens over margaritas, this level of arrogance and entitlement from convicted murderers will continue.”
Tudor Dixon (R) · former Michigan GOP gubernatorial nominee
BREAKING: Ruby Garcia's convicted killer is suing Trump for using his mugshot without permission. He wants $75.5 million + citizenship.
For Garcia’s family, the case has already cost them a daughter and a sister. It has now produced a courtroom filing asking the sitting president to apologize for accurately describing what happened to her.
Brandon Ortiz-Vite’s guilt was settled in a Kent County courtroom in 2024 — a guilty plea, a 39-to-102-year sentence, and a judge’s own words: “a cold-blooded murderer.” What he is now asking a federal court to decide is whether being described that way, accurately, by the man who is now president, entitles him to $75,500,000and the citizenship he lost any legal claim to in 2020. Presumption of innocence applies to his untested civil claims — not to the underlying facts, which he admitted under oath and which no filing from a prison cell can undo.
