Donald Trump on Saturday unleashed some of his most severe language against immigrants who have crossed the border illegally and committed crimes, particularly against young women, while also escalating his personal attacks on Kamala Harris. In the battleground state of Wisconsin, Trump labeled Democratic Vice President Harris, who visited the US-Mexico border for the first time in her 2024 presidential campaign on Friday, as 'mentally impaired' and 'mentally disabled'. The Republican presidential candidate was flanked by posters of immigrants in the US illegally who have been arrested for murder and other violent crimes, and banners proclaiming 'End Migrant Crime' and 'Deport Illegals Now'. His speech was unusually focused almost entirely on undocumented immigrants. He referred to those who had committed violent crimes as 'monsters,' 'stone-cold killers,' and 'vile animals'.
Trump is in a tight race with Harris ahead of the November 5 election. Immigration and the southern border are among the top issues for voters, according to opinion polls. Sarafina Chitika, a Harris spokesperson, responded to Trump's speech by saying: 'He's got nothing 'inspiring' to offer the American people, just darkness.' The former president blamed Harris and Democratic President Joe Biden for allowing undocumented immigrants into the US, accusing some migrants of wanting to 'rape, pillage, thieve, plunder, and kill the people of the United States of America.' At one point, Trump admitted: 'This is a dark speech.'
Trump's speech took place in the small Wisconsin city of Prairie du Chien, where a Venezuelan in the U.S. illegally was detained in September for allegedly sexually assaulting a woman and attacking her daughter. According to government data, some seven million migrants have been arrested crossing the US-Mexico border illegally during Biden's administration, a record high number that has fueled criticism of Harris and Biden from Trump and fellow Republicans. In her visit to the border on Friday, Harris outlined her plans to fix 'our broken immigration system' while accusing Trump of 'fanning the flames of fear and division' over the impact of immigrants on American life. Harris also called for tighter asylum restrictions and vowed to make stopping fentanyl from entering the US a 'top priority.'
Trump also repeated his false claim that his 2020 election defeat to Biden was fraudulent. If reelected, and 'if allowed,' Trump said he would prosecute people he blames for his loss then. Studies generally find there is no evidence immigrants commit crimes at a higher rate than native-born Americans, and critics say Trump's rhetoric reinforces racist tropes. Trump typically focuses on young women allegedly killed by Hispanic assailants to drive home his message, avoiding cases that involve male victims. Trump's opponents accuse him of cynically exploiting grieving families to fuel his narrative that foreign-born, often Hispanic, arrivals are part of an invading army. However, some of the families of the victims have welcomed Trump's focus on the issue of violent crime and the death toll of teenagers caused by the opioid drug fentanyl, much of which crosses into the US over the southern border. Several parents who had lost children to attacks by immigrants in the US illegally, or to fentanyl, spoke in support of him before Trump's remarks on Saturday.
