The Hard Life of an Immigrant Whose Killing Became a Symbol for Trump

#masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }U.S. Immigration CrackdownTracking ICE ActivityAfghan RefugeesDenaturalization PushBirthright Citizenship CaseTennessee Immigration BillsYou have a preview view of this article while we are checking your access. When we have confirmed access, the full article content will load.The Hard Life of an Immigrant Whose Killing Became a Symbol for TrumpPresident Trump posted surveillance footage of Nilufa Easmin’s brutal killing by another immigrant to advance his agenda. Behind the rhetoric was a more nuanced story.Skip to contentSkip to site indexIrHome U.S.WorldBusinessArtsLifestyleOpinionVideoAudioGamesCookingWirecutterThe AthleticU.S.InternationalCanadaEspañol中文The Hard Life of an Immigrant Whose Killing Became a Symbol for TrumpPresident Trump posted surveillance footage of Nilufa Easmin’s brutal killing by another immigrant to advance his agenda. Behind the rhetoric was a more nuanced story.Credit...Supported bySKIP ADVERTISEMENTListen · 13:53 min Share full article1By David Ovalle and Patricia MazzeiDavid Ovalle reported from Fort Myers and Cape Coral, Fla., and Patricia Mazzei from Miami.April 26, 2026Updated 11:37 a.m. ETNilufa Easmin arrived most days at the D&D Convenience Store by 6 a.m.Wearing a head scarf, she murmured a brief Muslim prayer before her shift selling snacks, cigarettes and gas in a blue-collar neighborhood of Fort Myers, Fla. After 3 p.m. she drove to her second job at a 7-Eleven, hours of more work stretching before her.Ms. Easmin, a 51-year-old from Bangladesh, had held many such jobs since arriving in the United States in the 1990s, blending into South Florida’s vast immigrant work force. What had been a life of determination and perseverance ended in a horrific act of violence on the morning of April 2, when a man beat her to death with a hammer.The suspect, Rolbert Joachin, 40, was himself an immigrant, smuggled by boat from Haiti to the Florida Keys four years ago.The killing was thrust into the national spotlight a week later, when President Trump posted gruesome surveillance footage of it on Truth Social. It was the latest proof, he wrote, that liberal immigration policies had allowed “millions of criminals” into the country to run amok.To advance his anti-immigration agenda, Mr. Trump focused on Mr. Joachin, barely mentioning Ms. Easmin as he blasted the Biden administration for extending a program that shielded Mr. Joachin and other Haitians from deportation. Mr. Trump, who has made disparaging comments about Haitian immigrants for years, wants to end the program, Temporary Protected Status, for some 350,000 Haitians; the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in the matter this week.A day after the president’s post, a Homeland Security official offered reporters a single detail about Ms. Easmin’s immigration status: that she had obtained citizenship “the right way.”<div class="css-7axq9l" data-testid="optimistic-truncator-noscript"><svg width="24" height="24" viewBox="0 0 24 24" aria-hidden="true" class="css-1b5b8u1" data-tpl="i"><path fill="currentColor" fill-rule="evenodd" d="M2.5 12a9.5 9.5 0 1 1 19 0 9.5 9.5 0 0 1-19 0Zm8.5 1.75v-7.5h2v7.5h-2Zm0 2v2h2v-2h-2Z" clip-rule="evenodd"></path></svg><div data-testid="optimistic-truncator-noscript-message" class="css-6yo1no"><p class="css-3kpklk" data-tpl="t">We are having trouble retrieving the article content.</p><p class="css-3kpklk" data-tpl="t">Please enable JavaScript in your browser…

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