Trump’s new rallying cry: Mollie Tibbetts The White House makes clear the Iowa tragedy will be front and center in the fight over immigration.

For more than a month, Iowans have been gripped by the mysterious and highly publicized disappearance of a local college student who left for a run in her rural Iowa community and never returned.

Now the case is poised to explode across the midterm election map.


On Tuesday, authorities charged a man who they said is an undocumented immigrant in the slaying of 20-year-old Mollie Tibbetts, and within hours the tragedy emerged as a polarizing wedge issue — just in time for the fall campaign homestretch.

“You heard about today with the illegal alien coming in, very sadly, from Mexico and you saw what happened to that incredible, beautiful young woman,” Trump said at a West Virginia rally Tuesday night. “Should’ve never happened. Illegally in our country. We’ve had a huge impact, but the laws are so bad, the immigration laws are such a disgrace. We’re getting it changed, but we have to get more Republicans.”

The White House followed up Wednesday by releasing an emotional video of direct-to-camera stories from families of victims of violence committed by undocumented immigrants.

“For 34 days, investigators searched for 20-year-old Mollie Tibbetts. Yesterday, an illegal alien, now charged with first-degree murder, led police to the cornfield where her body was found. The Tibbetts family has been permanently separated. They are not alone,“ read a tweet from the official White House Twitter account.

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders also addressed the issue at a press briefing Wednesday, offering condolences to the Tibbetts family.

“Lastly, on behalf of our entire administration, I want to extend prayers to the family, friends and loved ones of Mollie Tibbetts. The nation has watched over 30 days as local, state and federal officials have searched for Mollie, a rising sophomore at the University of Iowa. Sadly, the individual believed to be responsible for the murder is an illegal immigrant, making this an unfortunate reminder of why we need to strengthen our immigration laws,” she said. “The Bible tells us in Psalms that the Lord heals the broken-hearted and binds up their wounds. The Tibbetts family is hurting and they are in the hearts of all Americans, and we are grieving with them.“

On Wednesday evening, Trump released via Twitter a video of himself standing outside the White House, arguing that Tibbetts‘ death highlighted the need for tougher immigration enforcement along the U.S.-Mexico border, as well as government funding for his 2016 campaign promise of a wall separating the two countries.

“Mollie Tibbetts, an incredible young woman, is now permanently separated from her family. A person came in from Mexico illegally and killed her,“ the president said in the clip. “We need the wall. We need our immigration laws changed. We need our border laws changed. We need Republicans to do it because the Democrats aren’t going to do it.“

Trump claimed Tibbetts' death was “one instance of many,“ and warned of “tremendous crime trying to come through the borders“ from Mexico into the U.S. He also derided America‘s immigration laws as “strictly pathetic,“ calling them “the worst laws anywhere in the world.“

“We need new immigration laws, we need new border laws, the Democrats will never give them, and the wall is being built,“ the president said. “We’ve started it, but we also need the funding for this year’s building of the wall. So to the family of Mollie Tibbetts, all I can say is God bless you. God bless you.”

Charges in the Tibbetts case came on one of the worst days of Trump’s presidency: A federal jury convicted his former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, of financial fraud, and the president’s former personal attorney, Michael Cohen, pleaded guilty to violating campaign finance laws.

In Tuesday night’s rally, Trump didn’t address those criminal cases, steering instead to the perils of illegal immigration, a bread-and-butter issue in his 2016 run for president. Trump regularly held up examples of illegal immigrants charged with violent crimes, tapping anger behind the issue to rally the Republican base.

Trump seized on the killing of Kate Steinle, a woman whose death in San Francisco in 2015 catalyzed the debate over sanctuary cities, often referencing her in rallies at which he paired her death with a call to build a wall along the Mexico-U.S. border and enact tougher immigration laws.

As early as July 2015, just weeks after Steinle was shot by an undocumented immigrant who had been deported from the U.S. numerous times, Trump pointed to her death as evidence of the need to tighten border policy.

“I am so proud of the fact that I got dialogue started on illegal immigration. … Beautiful Kate in San Francisco was shot by an illegal who was here five times and they couldn’t do anything about it,” Trump said during a 2015 campaign event in Ames, Iowa . “And believe me, Mexico kept pushing him back because they didn't want him, believe me that’s true.”

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Last year, a jury acquitted the man charged in Steinle’s death, Jose Ines Garcia Zarate, after defense lawyers argued the shooting was accidental. Trump responded promptly. “A disgraceful verdict in the Kate Steinle case! No wonder the people of our Country are so angry with Illegal Immigration,” he tweeted.

In June, in the thick of a nationwide firestorm over his administration’s zero-tolerance policy that separated immigrant children from their parents at the border, Trump shifted the storyline by holding a news conference with so-called “angel families” — those whose loved ones were killed by undocumented immigrants.

Trump isn’t the only one weighing in publicly on the Tibbetts case. So far, it’s surfaced mainly on the GOP side: Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds, Vice President Mike Pence, Donald Trump Jr., and Iowa Congressman Steve King are among those who have commented.

In Iowa, the search for Tibbetts has dominated local news headlines for weeks. A reward for information about the University of Iowa sophomore’s disappearance grew to $300,000. Early this month, attention — and a flash of hope — briefly shifted to Missouri, after what turned out to be a false report of a sighting of the missing woman.

“As Iowans, we are heartbroken, and we are angry,” Reynolds said on Twitter. “We are angry that a broken immigration system allowed a predator like this to live in our community, and we will do all we can bring justice to Mollie’s killer.”

Fox News’ website Tuesday evening led with Tibbetts’ case: “Mollie Tibbetts murder suspect is illegal immigrant from Mexico, lived in Iowa for years, officials reveal.”

Fred Hubbell, Iowa’s Democratic gubernatorial candidate, also issued a statement on the Tibbetts tragedy. Unlike most Republicans, his comments steered clear of illegal immigration.

“For Mollie’s parents, her family and friends, any words today will be of little comfort. As a parent and grandparent your worst nightmare is losing your child,” Hubbell said. “I know this must be an unimaginable loss. Please know our family and Iowans everywhere share your grief and are united in pursuit of justice. I want to commend our law enforcement officials who worked around the clock to investigate this crime. In this state, if you break the law, you will face the consequences.”

For Republicans, the Tibbetts case has a complicating factor. Cristhian Rivera, the 24-year-old Mexican national facing charges, had worked for years on Yarrabee Farms, owned by the Lang Family, including Craig Lang, a Republican who in June narrowly lost a primary bid for state agriculture secretary. Lang is a previous president of the Iowa Farm Bureau.

In a statement Tuesday, Craig Lang said that Rivera had “worked at our farms for four years, was vetted through the government's E-Verify system, and was an employee in good standing.” But the Des Moines Register reported Wednesday that Yarrabee officials retracted the statement and acknowledged they did not use the E-Verify system.

The Register also reported that Rivera’s attorney filed a court document Wednesday asserting that Rivera was working legally in Iowa.

Every indication Wednesday was that the Tibbetts tragedy would be used to bolster the president’s argument and drive his message about border security this fall.

Donald Trump Jr., a liaison to the GOP base for his father, tweeted repeatedly Wednesday about the Tibbetts case, and pointed to comments made by Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren — a potential 2020 rival to the president — accusing her of downplaying the Iowa tragedy in a TV interview where she pivoted to talk about the “real problems” within the immigration system, including family separations.

“I’m so sorry for the family here and I know this is hard, not only for the family but for the people in her community, the people throughout Iowa. But one of the things we have to remember is we need an immigration policy that is effective. That focuses on where real problems are,” she said in an interview on CNN. “Last month, I went down to the border and I saw where children had been taken away from their mothers … I think we need immigration laws that focus on people who pose a real threat and I don't think mommas and babies are the place that we should be spending our resources. Separating a momma from a baby does not make this country safer.”

In a separate tweet regarding a comment made by a cable news guest on MSNBC, Trump Jr. wrote , “This is the actual view of the left. Everyone and anyone is more important than actual Americans. A great American kid with so much promise murdered horribly is “Just a girl in Iowa”. The left is sick! Remember that in November... which side do you want representing your kids???”

Quint Forgey contributed to this report.