Ten House Republicans Joined Democrats to Shield Haitians After a Mother Was Beaten to Death With a Hammer

April 20, 2026 Cat2, Illegal Immigration
Jaromir Urbanek via shutterstock

Nilufa Easmin was a 51-year-old mother who had just finished her morning prayers when Rolbert Joachin beat her to death with a hammer at a Fort Myers gas station.

She finished praying, walked outside, and a man with TPS status killed her in broad daylight on a Tuesday morning.

And 10 House Republicans looked at that story and voted to protect 350,000 more Haitians from deportation anyway.

The Names Every Republican Voter Needs to See

Ayanna Pressley – the Squad member who once called for "unrest in the streets" – needed Republican signatures to force this vote.

She got them.

Representatives Mike Lawler and Nicole Malliotakis of New York signed her discharge petition.

So did Maria Elvira Salazar, Mario Diaz-Balart, and Carlos Gimenez of Florida.

And Don Bacon of Nebraska, Rich McCormick of Georgia, Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, as well as Mike Carey and Mike Turner of Ohio.

10 Republicans handed a Squad member the votes she needed to put this on the House floor and embarrass the president of their own party.

The vote passed.

TPS for Haitians – extended three more years.

Don Bacon, who is retiring and apparently has nothing left to lose, told Fox News Digital that "I don't see the goodness of deporting people who are here legally, who are working and who contribute to our country."

Rolbert Joachin was here legally.

He had TPS status.

And he contributed a dead mother at a Fort Myers gas station.

Biden Let Him In. A Judge Kept Him Here. Republicans Just Protected 350,000 More.

Here is the full chain of failure that killed Nilufa Easmin.

Joachin arrived by boat near Key West in August 2022.

A federal immigration judge issued a deportation order against him that same year.

The Biden administration ignored it – and then handed him TPS status anyway. That status was supposed to expire in 2024.

The Trump administration moved to end TPS for all 350,000 Haitians on February 3rd of this year.

But a Biden-appointed judge named Ana Reyes stepped in and blocked it, accusing DHS Secretary Kristi Noem of acting from "hostility to nonwhite immigrants" and declaring the termination "null, void, and of no legal effect."

Trump went straight to the Supreme Court. Oral arguments are set for April 29th.

While that fight plays out, Pressley ran her discharge petition. While Trump was fighting judges to protect Americans, his own party members were signing paperwork to extend the program that kept Nilufa Easmin's killer in the country.

Andy Biggs said what every Republican should have said: "Members of Congress have a sacred and exclusive duty to our American constituents, not to foreign nationals."

Ten of his colleagues disagreed.

What Happened to Yasmin Easmin

The DHS press release on Joachin's arrest didn't mince words: "This illegal alien barbarically hit this woman in the head multiple times with a hammer. This heinous murderer was RELEASED into the country by the Biden administration. Their reckless immigration policies cost this woman her life."

That's the official position of the United States government.

Back in Fort Myers, a memorial has been growing outside the Chevron on MLK Boulevard where Yasmin – that's what her friends called her – was killed. Her Bangladeshi community is in mourning. A GoFundMe was set up for her two daughters.

Nobody is setting up a discharge petition for them.

The Supreme Court hears arguments on April 29th and will decide whether Trump has the authority to end TPS – authority every prior administration simply assumed existed until Biden's judges started blocking it.

These ten Republicans didn't change that legal outcome.

The Senate won't take up the bill and Trump would veto it anyway.

What they did was choose a side – publicly, on the record – two weeks after Yasmin Easmin was buried.

Her daughters will grow up without a mother.

Every Republican voter already knows why.

Sources:

  • Adam Pack, "House Republicans defy Trump to shield Haitians from deportation," Fox News, April 16, 2026.
  • Department of Homeland Security, "Haitian Illegal Alien Violently Kills Innocent Mother by Repeatedly Hitting Her with a Hammer Outside Gas Station in Fort Myers," DHS.gov, April 7, 2026.
  • "Haitian Man in US Illegally Accused of Killing Florida Gas Station Clerk With Hammer," NTD News, April 2026.
  • "Man shielded by Biden-era TPS charged in brutal hammer slaying of Bangladeshi clerk in Fort Myers," Florida Voice News, April 2026.
  • Amy Howe, "Haitian nationals ask court to deny Trump administration's request to remove their protected status," SCOTUSblog, March 16, 2026.