Trump Claims Charlotte Transit Murder Suspect 'Came In Through Open Borders' — But Records Show He Was Born in the US

During his 2026 State of the Union address, President Donald Trump falsely claimed that the man charged with fatally stabbing Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska on a Charlotte light rail train entered the United States through open borders; when public records confirm the suspect, Decarlos Dejuan Brown Jr., is a Charlotte-born American citizen.

Trump made the assertion on the night of 25 February 2026 while recognising Anna Zarutska, the victim's mother, in the chamber audience. 'She had escaped a brutal war only to be slain by a hardened criminal set free to kill in America. Came in through open borders,' the president said, according to the official Congressional address transcript.

The claim is factually incorrect. According to public records reviewed by WFAE, Charlotte's NPR affiliate, Brown Jr., 34, was born and raised in Charlotte, North Carolina, attended West Charlotte High School, and has lived in the Mecklenburg County area his entire life. He is a United States citizen. Immigration played no role in the circumstances of the killing.

The false claim overshadowed what is an otherwise well-documented case of systemic failure: a repeat violent offender with a deteriorating mental health history who was released on bail for a misdemeanour charge just weeks before an unprovoked attack that killed a 23-year-old woman minutes from her home.

Who Is Iryna Zarutska — and What Happened on the Night of 22 August 2025

Iryna Zarutska was 23 years old, a Ukrainian national who arrived in the United States in August 2022 alongside her mother, sister, and younger brother after fleeing Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The family settled with relatives in Huntersville, North Carolina.

In the years that followed, Zarutska moved to Charlotte's NoDa neighbourhood, enrolled in community college to improve her English, and found work at a pizzeria in the city's Lower South End. On the night of 22 August 2025, she was commuting home after finishing a shift there.

At approximately 21:46, Zarutska boarded the Lynx Blue Line at the Scaleybark station. According to the Department of Justice federal criminal complaint filed on 9 September 2025, Brown was already aboard the train. Surveillance footage showed Zarutska sitting in the row in front of him.

Approximately four minutes later, Brown pulled a folding knife from his pocket, unfolded it, and stabbed her three times from behind without any prior interaction. She sustained fatal stab wounds to her neck and body. Brown then walked away from the victim and was arrested by responding Charlotte Mecklenburg Police Department officers on the platform.

Zarutska's family described her death as 'tragic and preventable' in a public statement. She was minutes from home. She had survived a war. Her father, unable to leave Ukraine due to martial law barring men between 18 and 60 from departing the country, could not attend her funeral in the United States.

The Suspect: A Charlotte Native With 14 Prior Court Cases

DeCarlos Dejuan Brown Jr. was born in Charlotte and is a lifelong resident of Mecklenburg County. He attended West Charlotte High School. He is a United States citizen. There is no immigration record associated with him.

WFAE confirmed through public records that Brown had been on bail at the time of the killing, having been released after a January 2025 arrest for misusing 911, a misdemeanour charge. A judge had set his bond and released him. The North Carolina Department of Adult Correction separately confirmed that Brown had not been released early from prison; his 2021 release followed the reinstatement of post-release supervision by a hearing officer.

Court records show Brown has 14 prior cases in Mecklenburg County, with a criminal history stretching back to 2007. He was convicted in February 2015 of robbery with a dangerous weapon, breaking and entering, and larceny, and served five years in prison on a six-year sentence.

After his release, he faced further legal intervention. His mother, Michelle Dewitt, told the Charlotte Observer in September 2025 that she had tried repeatedly over the years to get psychiatric treatment for her son, whom she believed to suffer from schizophrenia, but had been turned away. 'I hope and pray that one day they find it in their heart to forgive my son,' she said of Zarutska's family, 'and that they realise that I am praying for their family.'

Federal Indictment, Iryna's Law, and the Policy Response

Brown faces charges in two parallel legal proceedings. The Mecklenburg County Superior Court indicted him for first-degree murder in September 2025. On 22 October 2025, a federal grand jury separately charged him with committing an act of violence causing death on a railroad carrier and mass transportation system, under 18 U.S.C. § 1992.

Per the Western District of North Carolina's announcement, the federal indictment carries special findings that make Brown eligible for the death penalty. The FBI and U.S. Attorney Russ Ferguson's office are prosecuting the federal case jointly.

The killing triggered a significant legislative response. North Carolina Governor Josh Stein signed House Bill 307 — 'Iryna's Law,' into law on 3 October 2025. The law tightens bail and pretrial release conditions for defendants with violent criminal histories, requires judges to consider full criminal records before setting bond, mandates written justifications for release decisions, and enables the hiring of ten new prosecutors and five victim-witness assistants.

Trump's 'open borders' attribution was not an offhand remark. It was the rhetorical hinge of a passage in a nationally televised address that listed the case as evidence of the consequences of Democratic immigration policy.

His speech described Brown as 'a deranged monster who had been arrested over a dozen times and was released through no cash bail,' facts consistent with the public record before appending the false immigration claim.

CNN fact-checker Daniel Dale noted on X that the man charged with the murder 'is an American whose Facebook page says he was born in Charlotte, the Charlotte Observer reports.'

For fact-checkers covering the administration, the incident followed a recognisable pattern: a real and grievous crime, a genuine policy failure in the pretrial release system, and a false immigration overlay applied to a perpetrator with no immigration history whatsoever.