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Donald Trump took a detour Friday from battleground states to a Colorado suburb that has made news over illegal immigration as he delivers a message, often using false or misleading claims and a dehumanizing language, according to which migrants cause chaos in small American towns.
Trump’s rally in Aurora marked the first time before the November election that either presidential campaign visited Colorado, which votes reliably statewide Democratic.
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The Republican candidate has long promised to stage the largest deportation operation in U.S. history and has made immigration central to his political persona since launching his first campaign in 2015. In recent months, Trump identified specific smaller communities that have seen large migrant arrivals, with local strains over resources and some longtime residents expressing distrust of sudden demographic changes.
Aurora came into the spotlight in August when a video circulated showing armed men running through a building housing Venezuelan migrants. Trump has widely claimed that Venezuelan gangs were taking over buildings, although authorities say it was only a single block of the suburbs near Denver and that the area is safe again.
Ignoring these denials from local authorities, Trump painted a picture of apartment complexes overrun by barbaric thugs and unsafe streets to navigate, blaming President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, Trump’s Democratic rival.
They are ruining your state, Trump said of Democrats in the White House.
No one who inflicted the violence and terror that Kamala Harris inflicted on this community can ever be allowed to become president of the United States, Trump added.
Trump has often used dehumanizing language, calling his political rivals scum and migrants animals “who invaded and conquered Aurora.” The city is infected with Venezuela, he said.
We must clean up our country, Trump said. And he returned to the first controversy of his political career, when he launched his 2016 campaign by claiming that migrants are rapists and that they bring drugs and crime.
I got a lot of heat for saying it, but I was right,” Trump said Friday, repeating the false claim that other countries were emptying their prisons and mental institutions and abandoning their worst criminals to the United States. United.
To thunderous applause, he called for the death penalty “for any migrant who kills an American citizen or law enforcement officer.”
Later Friday in Reno, Nevada, Trump insisted that the United States was an occupied country and added: I make this wish to you: November 5, 2024 will be Liberation Day in America. Liberation Day.
Trump announced in Colorado that as president he would launch Operation Aurora to focus on deporting members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, or TDA. This violent gang has its origins over a decade ago in an infamous, lawless prison with hardened criminals.
Trump also reiterated his promise to invoke the Alien Enemies Act, a 1798 law that allows the president to expel any non-citizen from a country with which the United States is at war.
In July, the Biden administration imposed sanctions against the gang and offered $12 million in rewards for the arrest of three leaders.
Aurora resident Jodie Powell, 54, was among the attendees at Trump’s event Friday. She said it was “not true” that Venezuelan gangs had taken over the city, as Trump claims. Still, Powell said she’s seen an increase in crime that she associates with the newcomers, citing a police chase that ended at a store where she was shopping.
It takes a small number of people to make a big difference in the community, said Powell, who places immigration at the top of his concerns, alongside the economy. It’s scary, it’s a scary thing.
At the venue where Trump appeared, posters showed photos of people in prison orange with descriptions including illegal immigrant gang members from Venezuela.
Look at all these pictures around me,” Stephen Miller, a former top aide who is expected to take a top White House job if Trump wins, told the crowd. Who did you grow up with? Are these the neighbors that you want in your city? The crowd shouted 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 state have been grossly exaggerated and have unfairly harmed the city’s identity and sense of security, said Mike Coffman, former US congressman.
Trump and his running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, also spread lies about a community in Springfield, Ohio, where they claimed Haitian immigrants were accused of stealing and eating pets .
Even though Ohio and Colorado are not competitive in the presidential race, the Republican message on immigration is aimed at states that are. Vance recently campaigned in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, a city of 70,000 that has resettled refugees from Africa and Asia, and touted Trump’s plan to speed up deportations. He argues that small communities have been overrun by immigrants who tax local resources.
Trump has pledged to deport not only criminals, a promise he shares with Harris, but also Haitians living legally in Springfield and even people he has denigrated as pro-Hamas radicals protesting on campuses academics. Trump said he would revoke temporary protected status that allows Haitians to stay in the United States because of widespread poverty and violence in their home country.
Harris has moved to the right on immigration, presenting herself as a candidate who can get tough on policing the border, which is seen as one of her biggest vulnerabilities.
She concluded her three-day schedule with a campaign event Friday in Scottsdale, Ariz., where she said she would create a bipartisan council of advisers to advise on her policy initiatives if she makes it to the White House.
I like good ideas, wherever they come from, said Harris, who is pushing for Republicans with doubts about Trump to support her.
She also accused Trump of letting Iran get away with it while he was in office and said she would be a greater advocate for Israel’s security.
Make no mistake, as president, I will never hesitate to take whatever action is necessary to defend American forces and interests against Iran and Iranian-backed terrorists, Harris said during a call with Jewish supporters before Yom Kippur. And I will never allow Iran to acquire nuclear weapons. Diplomacy is my preferred way to achieve this. But all options are on the table.
Harris accused Trump of doing nothing after Iran attacked American bases and American troops.
Harris’ criticism was a criticism of Trump for downplaying the January 2020 Iranian missile attack on a US base in Iraq, which left several US soldiers with concussion-like symptoms, some of whom had to be evacuated for treatment. Earlier this month, Trump called the injuries a headache.
The Iranian missile attack came days after Trump ordered a strike that killed Qassem Soleimani, the leader of Iran’s elite Quds Force, and increased tensions between the United States and Iran.
Harris participated virtually in a White House briefing with President Biden on recovery efforts after Hurricanes Milton and Helene. She sought to reassure those who suffered losses from the hurricane that they would receive government assistance.
(Only the title and image of this report may have been reworked by Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)