Republican candidate, Donald Trump has announced that if elected, he would inform Mexico’s new President Claudia Sheinbaum on day one that she must stop the flow of migrants and drugs into the U.S. or risk a 25% tariff on Mexican imports.
Speaking at his first rally of the day in Raleigh, North Carolina, Trump went on to attack his rival Harris on crime and immigration, arguing “you’ll have open borders the very first day” if she is elected.
Declaring that he would demand that the neighbouring country put an end to undocumented crossings, Trump said, “One of the first calls I’m going to make is to Mexico.”
Predicting Mexico will deploy soldiers to its southern border with Guatemala and Belize to stop migrants heading north, Trump stated, “It’s only got a 100% chance of working, because if that doesn’t work, I’ll make it 50, and [if] that doesn’t work, I’ll make it 75. For the tough guys, and I’ll make it 100.”
“You know, their southern border’s where they come in, they come right through. And by the way, there’s 100% chance of working. It’s only a question.”
Donald Trump
In his speech, Trump has once again repeated false and misleading claims about immigrants in the US, leaning into nativist sentiment as he claimed that undocumented migrants in the US are “different than us.”
“Terrible atrocities are happening every day in our cities and towns. They’re going after young girls. They’re going after old men … They don’t care.
“Different than us, the moment they kill, they don’t even think about it. We don’t kill. They wake up the next morning and … they don’t even think about the damage and the ruin and the havoc they’ve caused.”
Donald Trump
The Republican candidate went on to call for the death penalty for any migrant who kills a US citizen or law enforcement officer.
Trump has repeatedly sought to demonise migrants in the run-up to the vote, but critics have drawn parallels between his inflammatory rhetoric and the language used historically by white supremacist movements.
Republicans have also long tried to link migration and crime, but the data doesn’t back that up.
For example, research at Stanford University in California last year showed that “immigrants are 30 percent less likely to be incarcerated than are US-born individuals who are white.”
They also were 60 percent less likely to be imprisoned than the overall US-born population.
Ran Abramitzky, a Stanford professor and the study’s author, noted, “From Henry Cabot Lodge in the late 19th century to Donald Trump, anti-immigration politicians have repeatedly tried to link immigrants to crime, but our research confirms that this is a myth and not based on fact.”
Trump Slams FEMA’s Hurricane Response
The Republican candidate addressed the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, which tore through western North Carolina in September, wrecking roads and infrastructure and causing weeks-long power and water shortages.
Trump said, “It was horrible. Many people died,” recapping his visits to storm-hit communities.
He repeated his criticism of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), falsely claiming it lacked money to respond to the hurricane because it had allocated all its funds to “illegal migrants.” “They’ve had a terrible FEMA response. Like nonexistent,” Trump stated.
The agency has allocated more than $100m in assistance to affected households in the state.
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