A previously deported illegal immigrant from Mexico may serve a fraction of his potential life sentence for the murder of Grand Rapids’ Ruby Garcia if he accepts a plea deal offered by Kent County prosecutors.

Brandon Ortiz-Vite, a 25-year-old Mexican national, confessed in March to shooting Garcia four times with an illegally purchased handgun, before dumping the 25-year-old’s body alongside US-131 in Grand Rapids and fleeing in the woman’s car, Michigan State Police allege.

The Midwesterner was the first to report about Ortiz-Vite’s immigration status.

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Grand Rapids District Court Judge Angela Ross in May found there was enough evidence from six witnesses and a video of Ortiz-Vite confessing to the “horrible crime” to send him to trial on charges of felony murder, open murder, carjacking, carrying a concealed weapon, and felony firearm.

The murder charges carry a potential sentence of up to life in prison, but Kent County Assistant Prosecutor Lori Latham offered a plea deal that would impose a sentence of 30-37 years, with an additional two years for the firearm charge, WWMT reports.

“I’m turning myself in because I did a horrible crime,” Ortiz-Vite told a Michigan State Police trooper following his arrest at a church in Allegan County two days after the March 22 murder.

The murder, at the time the second within a year allegedly committed by an illegal immigrant, has driven debate over the Biden-Harris administration’s immigration policies, with Republicans including former President Donald Trump pointing to the case as an example of the consequences of millions illegally crossing the southern border.

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Ortiz-Vite was once approved for President Barack Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which shields illegal immigrants who came to the U.S. as children from deportation, but his DACA status expired in May 2019. He was deported by the Trump administration in September 2020 following a string of crimes including driving while intoxicated and burglary, though it remains unclear when he returned to the U.S.

Officials testified in May Ortiz-Vite admitted to drinking alcohol and using cocaine on the night of the murder, when MSP officials allege Garcia attempted to end a romantic relationship.

MSP Detective Sgt. Aaron Tubergen testified Garcia was driving as the two argued and Ortiz-Vite repeatedly attempted to grab the steering wheel, prompting Garcia to pull over on US-131 and demand Ortiz-Vite exit the car, according to WOOD.

Ortiz-Vite asked Garcia to drop him off elsewhere, fearing police patrolling the highway would find him walking and learn he was in the country illegally.

When Garcia pulled out her phone, Ortiz-Vite pulled out his gun, according to testimony cited by WXMI.

“He commented on his own immigration status and was worried about having contact with law enforcement,” Tubergen testified.

“During that altercation, he remembered that he had his handgun with him,” Tubergen said. “I believe he said it was instinct that he then reached for the gun and shot her multiple times inside the vehicle.”

Ortiz-Vite then got out of the car and opened the driver’s door, where he could see Garcia was still alive, he said.

“He recalled signs of life,” Tubergen said. “He indicated that her hands were still moving. He indicated in similar terms that she was still fighting for her life, and that’s when he decided to shoot her one more time, he believed it was in the head.”

Garcia’s body was later recovered along southbound US-131 near Leonard Street NW, WMTV reports.

In the months since the murder, illegal immigrants have been arrested for multiple sex assaults in Ann Arbor, a fatal hit-and-run in Grand Rapids, soliciting sex from minors in Shiawassee County, sexual conduct with a 16-year-old girl in Livingston County, and breaking into a home in Sturgis to molest two girls under the age of 13.

Last month, several Michigan sheriffs participated in a media call to highlight how the Biden-Harris open border policies are impacting their counties, pointing to a drastic increase in drug overdoses and heinous crimes they attribute to sanctuary policies in Macomb County, Lansing, and other liberal enclaves.

Just since June, illegal immigrants have been arrested for pouring gas on someone and lighting them on fire, stabbing someone in a fight about food, trafficking cocaine and meth from a drug house, and repeatedly raping an 8-year-old child, according to Van Buren County Sheriff Daniel Abbott.

Livingston County Sheriff Mike Murphy said illegal immigrants in his jurisdiction raped a 16-year-old girl, and caused an accident that put a 20-year-old pregnant woman undergoing chemotherapy in the hospital.

“That’s just the facts,” Abbott said, “what we’re seeing on the streets.”