Donald Trump deviated from the battleground states on Friday (Oct. 11, 2024) to visit a Colorado suburb that has been in the news for illegal immigration as he delivers a message often using false or misleading claims and dehumanizing language. that migrants wreak havoc on smaller American towns and villages.
Mr. Trump’s rally in Aurora marked the first time before elections in November that both presidential campaigns have visited Colorado, which polls reliably throughout the Democratic state.
Fueling anti-immigrant sentiment
The Republican candidate has long promised to mount the largest deportation operation in US history and has made immigration a core of his political persona since launching his first campaign in 2015. In recent months, Mr Trump has outlined specific more small communities where large migrants have arrived, with tensions flaring locally over resources and some longtime residents expressing mistrust about the sudden demographic shift.
Aurora came into the limelight in August when a video went viral showing armed men walking through an apartment building housing Venezuelan migrants. Mr. Trump has repeatedly claimed that Venezuelan gangs are taking over buildings, even though authorities say it’s one block from the suburb near Denver and the area is safe again.
Ignoring those refusals by local authorities, Mr. Trump painted a picture of housing estates overrun by “barbaric thugs” and streets unsafe to travel, blaming President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, Trump’s Democratic rival.
“They are ruining your country,” Mr. Trump said of Democrats in the White House.
Read also: A race to frame the race: Harris wants it to be pro-abortion; Trump wants to be about immigration
“No person who has inflicted the violence and terror that Kamala Harris has inflicted on this community can ever be eligible to become president of the United States,” Mr Trump added.
Trump’s call for the death penalty
Mr. Trump has often used dehumanizing language, calling his political rivals “scum” and migrants “animals” who have “invaded and taken over” Aurora. The city is “infected by Venezuela,” he said.
“We have to clean up our country,” Mr. Trump said. And he repeated the first controversy of his political career when he launched his campaign in 2016, saying migrants were rapists and brought drugs and crime.
“I took a lot of heat to say it, but I was right,” Mr Trump said on Friday (Oct 11, 2024), repeating the false claim that other countries are emptying their prisons and mental institutions and dumping their worst criminals in the USA.
To thunderous applause, he called for the death penalty “for any migrant who kills an American citizen or law enforcement officer.”
Later on Friday in Reno, Nevada, Mr Trump insisted the US was an “occupied country” and added: “I give you this pledge: November 5, 2024, will be the day America is liberated. Liberation Day.”
Mr. Trump announced in Colorado that as president he would launch “Operation Aurora” to focus on deporting members of the Venezuelan Tren de Aragua, or TDA, gang. The violent gang traces its origins back more than a decade to a notoriously lawless prison with hardened criminals.
Mr Trump also repeated his promise to invoke the Alien Enemy Act, a 1798 law that allows the president to deport any non-citizen who is from a country the US is at war with.
In July, the Biden administration sanctioned the gang and offered $12 million in rewards for the arrest of three leaders.
Aurora resident Jody Powell, 54, was among the attendees at Trump’s Friday event. She said it was “not the case” that Venezuelan gangs had taken over the city, as Mr Trump claimed. Still, Powell said she has seen an increase in crime she attributes to the newcomers, citing a police chase that ended at a store where she was shopping.
“Gang activity is greatly exaggerated”
“It takes a few people to make a big difference in a community,” said Powell, who ranked immigration as her top concern along with the economy. “It’s scary, it’s a scary thing.”
At the venue where Mr Trump appeared, posters showed pictures of people in prison orange with descriptions including “members of illegal immigrant gangs from Venezuela”.
“Look at all these pictures around me,” Stephen Miller, a former top aide expected to take a top White House role if Trump wins, told the crowd. “Are these the kids you grew up with? Are these the neighbors you grew up with, are these the neighbors you want in your town?” The crowd roared “no” in response.
Some Colorado officials, including Aurora’s Republican mayor, have accused Trump and other Republicans of exaggerating the city’s problems.
“Again, the reality is that concerns about Venezuelan gang activity in our city — and our state — have been greatly exaggerated and have unfairly damaged the city’s identity and sense of safety,” said Mike Coffman, a former U.S. congressman.
Mr. Trump and his running mate, Ohio Senator J.D. Vance, also spread lies about a community in Springfield, Ohio, where they said Haitian immigrants had been accused of stealing and eating pets.
While Ohio and Colorado are not competitive in the presidential race, the Republican message on immigration is designed for states that are. Vance recently campaigned in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, a town of 70,000 that has resettled refugees from Africa and Asia, and touted Trump’s plan to increase deportations. He argued that smaller communities were “overwhelmed” by immigrants, taxing local resources.
Mr. Trump has vowed to deport not only “criminals,” a pledge he shares with Harris, but also Haitians living legally in Springfield and even people he vilified as “pro-Hamas radicals” protesting on college campuses. Mr. Trump said he would revoke temporary protected status that allows Haitians to stay in the U.S. because of widespread poverty and violence in their native country.
Ms. Harris has veered to the right on immigration, casting herself as a candidate who could be tough on border security, seen as one of her biggest vulnerabilities.
Published – October 12, 2024, 11:16 AM IST
