Donald Trump is leaning into a nativist, anti-immigrant message in the final stage of his third presidential campaign, advancing a closing argument centered on fearmongering, falsehoods and stereotypes about migrants as polls show his edge on economic issues fading.<\/p>\n
In recent days, the former president has suggested that \u201cbad genes\u201d are to blame for people in the country illegally who have committed murders, reprised his warnings about a migrant \u201cinvasion\u201d and suggested Vice President Kamala Harris\u2019s handling of border issues shows she is \u201cmentally impaired.\u201d<\/p>\n
He will campaign in Aurora, Colo., on Friday, after promoting false claims about Venezuelan gangs taking over residential buildings in the Denver suburb.<\/p>\n
Illegal crossings at the U.S.-Mexico border are down significantly this year after the Biden administration imposed sweeping restrictions on asylum, and most experts say that immigration has boosted the U.S. economy. But polls show Trump has a clear advantage on the issues of immigration and border security, and the former president and his allies are wagering that his false and exaggerated claims about migrants will excite his base and propel him to victory.<\/p>\n
Trump\u2019s critics are alarmed by his tactics and warn that they stoke racial divisions and fear of migrants.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe doesn\u2019t even respect us,\u201d Marisela Sandoval, 39, a unionized Las Vegas hospital worker who was born in Dallas and grew up in Mexico, said in a recent interview when asked about Trump\u2019s rhetoric. \u201cIt\u2019s just so much hating against immigrants. It\u2019s dangerous. So disrespectful.\u201d<\/p>\n
His base, however, is elated.<\/p>\n
\u201cToday I make you this promise: I will liberate Wisconsin and our entire nation from this mass migration invasion of murderers, child predators, drug dealers, gang members and thugs. It\u2019ll be liberated,\u201d Trump said before a crowd of thousands at a rally in Juneau, Wis., over the weekend.<\/p>\n
The crowd roared. \u201cTrump! Trump! Trump!\u201d they cheered, offering the loudest standing ovation of the rally.<\/p>\n
Trump has frequently used dehumanizing language to describe migrants, referring to them as \u201csavage criminals\u201d and \u201canimals.\u201d He has said undocumented immigrants are \u201cpoisoning the blood of our country,\u201d and he has promoted false claims about migrants eating pets in Springfield, Ohio, and bankrupting the small Pennsylvania town of Charleroi. His ads mentioning immigration frequently refer to migrants as \u201cillegals\u201d and include ominous imagery of people flooding the U.S.-Mexico border.<\/p>\n
The ex-president has long relied on incendiary rhetoric against immigrants as a political tactic, dating back to the launch of his first presidential campaign in 2015. Since then, he has further sharpened those attacks and leaned even harder on immigration \u2014 which has been a centerpiece of his 2024 campaign, as it was in 2016 \u2014 as polls have shown that he is losing his edge on the economy.<\/p>\n
Trump himself has suggested the border is a bigger issue than the economy.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know they do all these polls, and the polls say it\u2019s the economy,\u201d he said at the Juneau rally, \u201cAnd the polls say very strongly it\u2019s inflation, and I can understand it a little bit. To me, it\u2019s the horrible people that we\u2019re allowing into our country that are destroying our country.\u201d<\/p>\n
Karoline Leavitt, a Trump campaign spokeswoman, said in a statement that Trump remains focused on both the economy and immigration, which poll as top-of-mind for voters.<\/p>\n
\u201cDay in and day out, President Trump focuses on the issues that matter most to Americans: inflation hurting their pocketbooks and illegal immigration invading their country,\u201d Leavitt said. \u201cHe will continue to discuss both issues over the next 26 days.\u201d<\/p>\n
At recent campaign stops, Trump has distorted official Homeland Security Department statistics on undocumented immigrants with homicide convictions, falsely claiming that the Biden administration \u201creleased\u201d them when, in reality, the government numbers Trump is citing span decades and include people who are serving time in state and federal prisons.<\/p>\n
His promises to expel undocumented immigrants \u2014 and many people who are legally present in the United States \u2014 have drawn some of the largest cheers at his rallies. During the Juneau rally, cheers erupted again as Trump promised to end \u201cthe invasion of savage criminals\u201d and begin the \u201cthe largest deportation in American history\u201d on his first day in office.<\/p>\n
He repeatedly leaned on fear tactics in his remarks, saying that Harris, if elected, will \u201cinundate your towns with illegal alien criminals\u201d and \u201ceven if they haven\u2019t arrived yet, they will be.\u201d<\/p>\n
Greg Fredrick, 57, who attended the Juneau rally, agrees with the former president\u2019s concern about migrants spreading across the country.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn Dodge County, we\u2019re not feeling it, but other spots are, and it will come this way,\u201d said Fredrick, a contractor in the township of Lebanon. \u201cWe need to seal the border up. It\u2019s horrible.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fredrick raised concern over the number of illegal border crossings by migrants coming from China and other nations not typically known to come to the United States through the southern border. \u201cSomething\u2019s fishy with that. It\u2019s not right,\u201d he said, adding he\u2019s worried another terrorist attack could be coming without more border security. \u201cSomething bad\u2019s going to happen,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Trump and his running mate, Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), often blame immigrants for the country\u2019s problems. Trump has claimed that migrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border are taking \u201cBlack and Hispanic jobs,\u201d a characterization that many Americans have found offensive and economists said was false. And Vance has called illegal migration \u201cone of the most significant drivers of home prices in the country,\u201d arguing that migrants are competing with Americans for limited homes \u2014 a claim that has been debunked by economists and housing experts.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf Kamala is reelected, your town, and every town just like it, all across Wisconsin and all across our country \u2014 the heartland, the coast, it doesn\u2019t matter \u2014 will be transformed into a third-world hellhole,\u201d Trump said during an event in Prairie du Chien, Wis.<\/p>\n
A Fox News poll last month found that 51 percent of registered voters favor Trump on the economy, compared with 46 percent who favor Harris. That\u2019s compared with a 15-point advantage that Trump had over Biden in March.<\/p>\n
Inflation dropped in September to its lowest level in more than three years, and the Federal Reserve cut interest rates last month for the first time in more than four years. But many Americans continue to express concerns about the cost of living.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Donald Trump is leaning into a nativist, anti-immigrant message in the final stage of his third presidential campaign, advancing a closing argument centered on fearmongering, falsehoods and stereotypes about migrants as polls show his edge on economic issues fading. In recent days, the former president has suggested that \u201cbad genes\u201d are to blame for people […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":10952,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10951","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\/10951","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=10951"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10951\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10952"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10951"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10951"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10951"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}