On June 30, a 21-year-old named Brandon Eduardo Velasquez Chavez was stabbed in the back with a knife at a meat processing plant in Coldwater, Michigan. He died at the scene. His coworker, Valmir Djempsly, was arrested and charged with murder.
The headlines called Djempsly a "Michigan man."
He is not from Michigan. He is not from anywhere in the United States. Valmir Djempsly is an illegal immigrant from Haiti who was caught at the southern border in 2024 and released into the country under the Biden Administration's catch-and-release policies. He made his way to a small Michigan town, got a job at a meatpacking plant, and allegedly killed a coworker.
As reported by Not the Bee, the media's favorite geographic euphemism was doing heavy lifting again. "Michigan man" is doing the work of an entire public relations department — stripping out the immigration status, the border history, the policy failure, and leaving behind a nice, clean, local-sounding label.
Lauren Bis, Acting Assistant Secretary at the Department of Homeland Security, didn't mince words. "This illegal alien barbarically stabbed his coworker to death," Bis said. "This murderer was released into American communities by the Biden Administration. If it weren't for the reckless open border policies of the Biden Administration, this criminal never would have been in our country in the first place and his victim would still be alive."
Bis confirmed that ICE has lodged a detainer asking Michigan authorities not to release Djempsly from jail without notifying Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
That detainer exists because we've seen this story before. An illegal immigrant commits a violent crime, local media scrubs the immigration angle, and the public doesn't learn the full picture until federal authorities issue a statement days later. The "Michigan man" framing isn't accidental. It's a conscious editorial choice that treats immigration status as irrelevant in a story where immigration status is the entire point.
Brandon Eduardo Velasquez Chavez was 21 years old. He went to work at a meat processing plant and didn't come home. The man charged with killing him should never have been in the country. He was apprehended at the border, and instead of being removed, he was processed and released.
That's not a Michigan crime story. That's a federal border policy story. But calling it that would require asking uncomfortable questions about who opened the door — and the "Michigan man" headline lets everyone skip that part.
The geographic label doesn't change the nationality. It doesn't change the policy failure. And it doesn't bring back a 21-year-old who showed up for his shift on June 30 and never clocked out.
