ERIE, Pa. \u2014 Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, in a speech that repeatedly painted a dark caricature of immigrants, seized on a recent report to claim falsely that thousands of immigrants with homicide records had been allowed to go free by the Biden administration.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re coming into our cities and our small towns, here in Pennsylvania and all over the country,\u201d Trump said in a speech that meandered widely and made several other unsupported assertions. \u201cThese towns are petrified. Even if they\u2019re not there yet, they will be there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trump cited a new letter from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to falsely suggest that more than 13,000 immigrants convicted of homicide had been let into the United States on President Joe Biden\u2019s watch and then released. But allies of Vice President Kamala Harris and nonpartisan experts say Trump is badly misrepresenting the data.<\/p>\n
The people he cited entered the United States over several decades, including during the Trump presidency. And while they are listed as \u201cnon-detained,\u201d that means only that ICE is not detaining them; in many cases, they are being held by another agency, and are often serving prison sentences.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe data in this letter is being misinterpreted,\u201d a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, said in a statement. \u201cThe data goes back decades; it includes individuals who entered the country over the past 40 years or more, the vast majority of whose custody determination was made long before this Administration.\u201d<\/p>\n
The spokesperson added, \u201cIt also includes many who are under the jurisdiction or currently incarcerated by federal, state or local law enforcement partners.\u201d<\/p>\n
Even so, Trump spent much of his two-hour speech on elaborate descriptions of the individuals purportedly roaming the nation, calling them \u201cstone-cold killers,\u201d \u201cworse than any of our criminals,\u201d \u201cmonsters,\u201d and people who \u201chave no heart\u201d and \u201cdon\u2019t care who they kill.\u201d<\/p>\n
The ICE letter, which has also been cited by other conservatives, was sent on Sept. 25 by Patrick J. Lechleitner, the agency\u2019s deputy director, to Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-Tex.), in response to his request for information on noncitizens who are on ICE\u2019s docket and have been charged with or convicted of a crime.<\/p>\n
While Trump focused much of his speech in Erie on immigrants, he hit on several other themes that have made regular appearances in his stump speech, including the notion that he would easily win the election if Democrats did not somehow rig the system.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf they didn\u2019t cheat I wouldn\u2019t even be here today, you know why? I wouldn\u2019t have to campaign,\u201d Trump said. \u201cI\u2019m only here because they cheat. And they cheat in this state, especially in Philadelphia \u2026 Philadelphia is out of control, Detroit is out of control, Atlanta is out of control.\u201d<\/p>\n
He added, \u201cIf God came down from a high and said, \u2018I\u2019m going to be your vote tabulator for this election,\u2019 I would leave this podium right now because I wouldn\u2019t have to speak.\u201d A range of investigations from election officials in both parties have repeatedly found no evidence of significant voter fraud in the United States.<\/p>\n
Trump also repeated his recent claim that Harris is \u201cmentally impaired,\u201d echoing remarks he made Saturday that drew condemnation from advocates for people with disabilities.<\/p>\n
\u201cCrooked Joe Biden became mentally impaired,\u201d Trump said Sunday. \u201cBut Lyin\u2019 Kamala Harris, honestly, I believe she was born that way. There\u2019s something wrong with Kamala and I just don\u2019t know what it is, but there is definitely something missing, and you know what? Everybody knows it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe need Trump!\u201d the crowd cheered.<\/p>\n
Harris since the beginning of the campaign has dismissed such comments as part of Trump\u2019s longtime \u201cplaybook\u201d of personal insults and derisive comments about individuals and groups. She has said that she is seeking to \u201cturn the page\u201d from Trump\u2019s politics of putting people down to a new era of lifting people up.<\/p>\n
Few issues have become as heated during the campaign as immigration, an area where polls suggest voters trust Trump more than Harris. As Trump and his running mate, Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), have unleashed ever-harsher rhetoric about immigrants, Harris has sought to deflect criticism that she and Biden took an overly permissive approach to the issue that led to repeated scenes of chaos at the border.<\/p>\n
Harris visited the southern border on Friday, stressing the enforcement-oriented approach taken by the administration over the past year that has led to a sharp drop in the number of border crossings. She also criticized Trump for urging congressional allies to torpedo a tough bipartisan immigration bill earlier this year.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe American people deserve a president who cares more about border security than playing political games,\u201d she said at her appearance in Douglas, Ariz., adding, \u201cI will reach across the aisle, and I will embrace common-sense approaches and new technologies to get the job done.\u201d<\/p>\n
Harris also took aim at Trump\u2019s record while in office and his current harsh rhetoric about immigrants.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the four years Donald Trump was president, he did nothing to solve our immigration problems,\u201d Harris said. \u201cHe separated families. He ripped toddlers out of their mothers\u2019 arms, put children in cages and tried to end protections for \u2018dreamers.\u2019 He made the challenges at the border worse. And he is still fanning the flames of fear and division.\u201d<\/p>\n
In Sunday\u2019s speech, Trump claimed that Harris \u201cdoesn\u2019t have the capability\u201d to handle the border \u2014 saying she\u2019s had almost four years as vice president to get it under control \u2014 and called her a \u201ccommunist,\u201d observing that his previous description of the vice president as a \u201cMarxist\u201d wasn\u2019t landing (\u201cunfortunately nobody knows what that is\u201d). Trump has had a hard time defining Harris since she replaced Biden at the top of the ticket, and has tested several nicknames for her, including \u201cLyin\u2019 Kamala.\u201d<\/p>\n
He also falsely claimed that Harris prosecuted \u201cher political opponents like me.\u201d At one point, Trump again baselessly questioned whether Harris had really worked at McDonald\u2019s, as he has done on several earlier occasions.<\/p>\n
After the rally, Erie County GOP Chair Tom Eddy said Trump\u2019s criticisms of Harris were designed to appeal to his most hardcore supporters, with the goal that they would then persuade undecided voters. \u201cAt these rallies, he\u2019s talking to his base,\u201d Eddy said. \u201cAnd I think the hope is that his base will go out and talk to other people.\u201d<\/p>\n
Much of Trump\u2019s speech re-upped issues he has cited at other rallies. He recited a poem about a snake that he uses to speak on immigration. He recounted a shooter\u2019s attempt to assassinate him in Butler, Pa., saying the city had now become a \u201cbig tourist site.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cLock her up,\u201d the crowd chanted after Trump called Harris \u201cstupid.\u201d<\/p>\n
He repeated his false claim that then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) \u201cturned down thousands of troops\u201d ahead of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.<\/p>\n
Even though Trump acknowledged that he is running against Harris, he repeatedly brought up Biden. He reminisced about his June 27 debate against Biden, claimed Biden was a better candidate than Harris and even surmised that \u201cif she does really badly they\u2019ll probably put him back.\u201d Harris officially accepted the Democratic nomination in August, and there is no mechanism for installing Biden as the nominee.<\/p>\n
Trump even recalled the moment in their debate when the two presidents bickered about their golf game.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe worst of all was when he said \u2018I want to play him in golf\u2019,\u201d Trump said. \u201cHe wants to play me in golf. You ever see him play?\u201d Trump then proceeded to imitate Biden. \u201cThat guy can\u2019t play.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
ERIE, Pa. \u2014 Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, in a speech that repeatedly painted a dark caricature of immigrants, seized on a recent report to claim falsely that thousands of immigrants with homicide records had been allowed to go free by the Biden administration. \u201cThey\u2019re coming into our cities and our small towns, here in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":10316,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10315","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10315","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10315"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10315\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10316"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10315"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10315"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10315"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}