Fox News repeatedly touted Donald Trump’s mention of Ruby Garcia, a 25-year-old allegedly killed by her undocumented immigrant boyfriend, while covering his Tuesday speech about “Biden’s Border Bloodbath.” But the pro-Trump propaganda network isn’t mentioning that the former president said he had spoken to Garcia’s family — a claim the family’s spokesperson subsequently denied.

Fox has been tying together individual horrific cases of alleged crime by migrants to concoct a fraudulent narrative of a “migrant crime crisis” that the network baselessly attributes to President Joe Biden’s border policies in an effort to bolster Trump’s campaign. 

Trump has echoed Fox’s attacks on the stump, and at a Tuesday event he highlighted the killing of Garcia, a Michigan woman whom law enforcement officials say was killed by her boyfriend, a Mexican national who had been deported and reentered the country without vetting by immigration officials. Trump mentioned Garcia while attacking Biden’s border policies, which he alleged had caused a “bloodbath,” promising to “deliver justice for Ruby.”

Trump also offered a detailed anecdote about Garcia, claiming that he had spoken with members of her family.

“Ruby's loved ones and community are left grieving for this incredible young woman,” Trump said. “They said she had just this most contagious laughter and when she walked into a room, she lit up that room — and I've heard that from so many people. I spoke to some of her family.”

But later that afternoon, the local Fox affiliate reported that when it tried to confirm Trump’s story by reaching out to Garcia’s sister Mavi, who is acting as spokesperson for the family, she said the former president had not spoken to any member of the family.

Mavi Garcia spoke in more detail to NBC’s affiliate, telling Target 8 that neither Trump nor any representative of his campaign had contacted anyone from the family.

“He did not speak with any of us, so it was kind of shocking seeing that he had said that he had spoke with us, and misinforming people on live TV,” she said. “It was shocking. I kind of stopped watching it. I’d only seen up to that, after I heard a couple of misinformations he said, I just stopped watching it.”

Trump is a notorious liar who is known for fabricating anecdotes, but the 77-year-old has also regularly confused facts during campaign events as he seeks the presidency for a second time. The description of Garcia he attributed to her relatives closely tracks with the language in her obituary, which also appeared in a Monday article about Trump’s desire for members of her family to attend the Michigan event.

National news outlets have picked up the story of Trump’s claim and Mavi Garcia’s denial but have been stymied in their efforts to get the Trump campaign to explain the discrepancy.

Fox, meanwhile, has barreled ahead in the hours since local outlets began raising questions on Tuesday afternoon. The network repeatedly highlighted Trump’s discussion of Garcia on Tuesday night and Wednesday morning — and ignored his subsequently disputed claims that he spoke with members of her family.  

On Tuesday night, Fox prime-time host Jesse Watters aired a clip of Trump talking about Garcia to make the case that “Donald Trump is turning disinformation into information” about “Biden’s border bloodbath.”

“The former president clearly calling this ‘Biden's border bloodbath,’ but he is using points like this to drive the point home,” Fox anchor Trace Gallagher said later that evening on Fox News @ Night. He then aired a clip in which Trump said that Garcia had been “savagely murdered by an illegal alien criminal” after “we threw him out of the country and crooked Joe Biden took him back and let him back in.” 

Gallagher then asked The Washington Examiner’s Kaylee McGhee White if the former president had offered a “compelling narrative.” White replied that Trump had, claiming that “every single crime committed by an illegal immigrant is entirely preventable and is being enabled by the Biden administration.”

Fox continued promoting Trump’s remarks about Garcia the following morning.

“Yesterday Donald Trump went to Grand Rapids, Michigan,” co-host Ainsley Earhardt said on Fox & Friends. “He talked a lot about illegal immigration. And he said ‘under crooked Joe Biden, every state is now a border state’ and he also mentioned Ruby Garcia. She’s that 25-year-old woman that was allegedly killed by an illegal in Grand Rapids who had been deported. The guy who allegedly killed her had been deported to Mexico in 2020 under Donald Trump but then returned to the U.S., and her body was found alongside the road.” 

Anchor Bill Hemmer also said on America’s Newsroom, “Trump yesterday was talking in Michigan about Ruby Garcia, a 25-year-old killed last month in Grand Rapids.”