Trump leans into anti-immigrant rants and Harris barbs at Wisconsin rally

Donald Trump spoke on Saturday within the battleground state of Wisconsin, escalating his anti-immigrant rhetoric and taking his private insults in opposition to Kamala Harris up a notch.

Trump’s speech within the small group of Prairie du Chien, the place a Venezuelan within the US illegally was detained in September for allegedly sexually assaulting a girl and attacking her daughter, was unusually devoted nearly fully to undocumented immigrants. He wrongfully claimed that immigrants within the US are violent criminals, referring to them as “stone-cold killers”, “monsters” and “vile animals”.

The Republican presidential candidate was flanked by posters of immigrants within the US illegally who’ve been arrested for homicide and different violent crimes, and banners saying “Finish Migrant Crime” and “Deport Illegals Now”.

Trump is locked in a detailed race with Kamala Harris, the Democratic candidate and vice-president, earlier than the 5 November election. Immigration on the southern border are one of many high points for voters, in accordance with opinion polls.

Trump attacked Harris, who on Friday visited the US-Mexico border for the primary time in her 2024 presidential marketing campaign, calling her “mentally impaired” and “mentally disabled”.

The previous president blamed Harris and Joe Biden for permitting undocumented immigrants into the US, accusing some immigrants of desirous to “rape, pillage, thieve, plunder and kill the folks of america of America”.

At one level Trump admitted: “It is a darkish speech.”

“There’s no higher act of disloyalty than to extinguish the sovereignty of your individual nation proper by means of your border, it doesn’t matter what lies she tells,” he mentioned.

“Kamala Harris can by no means be forgiven for her erasing our border, and he or she must not ever be allowed to turn into president of america and Wisconsin,” he added.

A video aspiring to assault Kamala Harris was proven in the midst of Trump’s remarks.

It was a compilation of Harris’s feedback about immigration coverage.

“She is a catastrophe, and he or she’s not going to ever do something for the border,” he mentioned after the video. “She’s incompetent and a foul individual.”

“She’s a Marxist,” he added.

JD Vance continued the assaults on Harris in a speech in Newton, Pennsylvania, taking the previous president’s lead and ensuring to proceed the anti-immigrant claims.

“The issue with Kamala Harris is that she’s obtained no substance,” Trump’s working mate mentioned. “The issue with Kamala Harris is that she’s obtained no plan. And the issue with Kamala Harris is that she has been the vice-president for three-and-a-half years and has failed this nation.”

Vance claimed with out proof that Harris performed a task in worsening the financial system by exacerbating inflation, then went on to hyperlink the nation’s financial woes to immigration, blaming Harris for what he describes as an “invasion” amid a scarcity of border management.

Vance claimed that the presence of immigrants within the US is contributing to rising housing prices.

Some 7 million immigrants have been arrested crossing the US-Mexico border illegally throughout Biden’s administration, in accordance with authorities knowledge, a document excessive quantity that has fueled criticism of Harris and Biden from Trump and fellow Republicans.

In her go to to the border on Friday, Harris outlined her plans to repair “our damaged immigration system” whereas accusing Trump of “fanning the flames of worry and division” over the influence of immigrants on American life.

Harris additionally known as for tighter asylum restrictions and vowed to make a “high precedence” of stopping fentanyl from coming into the US.

Earlier than wrapping up his speech, Trump known as to the stage the mom of Rachel Morin, a 37-year-old Maryland mom of 5 who was killed final yr. After Rachel’s dying, a local of El Salvador was arrested. Trump has used this case to help his remarks in opposition to immigrants from Central America residing within the US.

Research typically discover there isn’t a proof immigrants commit crimes at a better price than native-born People and critics say Trump’s rhetoric reinforces racist tropes.

Trump’s opponents accuse him of cynically exploiting grieving households to gasoline his narrative that foreign-born, typically Hispanic, arrivals are a part of an invading military.

However a number of the households of the victims have welcomed Trump’s deal with the difficulty of violent crime and the dying toll of youngsters brought on by the opioid drug fentanyl, a lot of which crosses into the US over the southern border.