Donald Trump on Friday (Oct. 11, 2024) visits a Colorado suburb far from the battleground states that has been in the news over illegal immigration as he delivers a message, often using false or misleading claims and dehumanizing language. That the migrants are creating anarchy. Small American Cities and Towns.
Mr Trump’s rally in Aurora gets the go-ahead for the first time november election Either presidential campaign has visited Colorado, which reliably votes Democratic throughout the state.
promote anti-immigrant sentiments
The Republican nominee has long promised to wage the largest deportation campaign in American history and has made immigration the center of his political persona since launching his first campaign in 2015. In recent months, Mr. Trump has singled out specific small communities that have seen a large influx of people. Tensions are rising locally over immigration, resources, and some long-time residents are expressing mistrust about the sudden demographic changes.
Aurora made headlines in August when a video circulated showing armed men marching into an apartment building housing Venezuelan migrants. Mr Trump has largely claimed that Venezuelan gangs are taking over the buildings, although officials say it was just a block of suburbia near Denver, and the area is again safe.
Ignoring those denials from local officials, Mr. Trump posted a photo of apartment complexes taken over by “savage thugs” and streets unsafe for travel, blaming President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, Trump’s Democratic rival. painted.
“They are ruining your state,” Mr Trump said of the Democrats in the White House.
Mr Trump said, “Kamala Harris, who has unleashed the violence and terror on this community, can never be allowed to become president of the United States.”
Trump calls for death penalty
Mr Trump often used dehumanizing language, calling his political rivals “scum” and immigrants “animals” who “invaded and conquered” Aurora. The city is “infected with Venezuela”, he said.
“We have to clean up our country,” Mr Trump said. And he repeated the first controversy of his career in politics, when he launched his campaign in 2016 by saying that immigrants are rapists and bring drugs and crime.
“It pains me a lot to say this, but I was right,” Mr Trump said on Friday (October 11, 2024), repeating the false claim that other countries are emptying their prisons and mental institutions and Putting their worst criminals in jail. United States.
To applause, he called for the death penalty for “any immigrant who kills an American citizen or law enforcement officer.”
Later on Friday in Reno, Nevada, Mr. Trump insisted that America is “an occupied country,” adding, “I pledge to you this: November 5, 2024, will be Emancipation Day in America. Emancipation Day.”
Mr. 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. The violent gang originated from a notoriously lawless prison that housed hardened criminals for more than a decade.
Mr Trump also reiterated his pledge to invoke the Alien Enemies Act, a 1798 law that allows the president to deport any non-citizen who is from a country with which the US is at war.
In July, the Biden administration issued sanctions against the gang and offered a $12 million reward for the arrest of three leaders.
Aurora resident Jody Powell, 54, was among the attendees at Trump’s Friday event. He said it was “not the case” that Venezuelan gangs had taken over the city, as Mr Trump claims. Still, Powell said she has seen an increase in crime with newcomers, citing an incident with a police chase that ended at a store where she was shopping.
“Gang activity has been greatly exaggerated”
“It takes a small number of people to make a big difference in a community,” said Powell, who lists immigration as her top concern along with the economy. “It’s scary, it’s a scary thing.”
At the venue where Mr Trump attended, posters displayed orange mug shots of jailed people, including “Venezuelan illegal immigrant gang members”.
Former top aide Stephen Miller, who is expected to take a senior role in the White House if Trump wins, told the crowd, “Look at all these pictures of me around.” “Are these the same kids you grew up with? Are these the same kids you grew up with?” “Are the neighbors you grew up with the same neighbors you want in your city?” In response the crowd roared “No!”
Some Colorado officials, including the Republican mayor of Aurora, accused Trump and other Republicans of exaggerating the problems in the city.
“Again, the reality is that concerns about Venezuelan gang activity in our city – and our state – have been greatly exaggerated and have unduly damaged the city’s sense of identity and safety, ” said former US Congressman Mike Coffman.
Mr Trump and his running mate, Ohio Senator JD Vance, have also spread lies about a community in Springfield, Ohio, where they said Haitian immigrants were accused of stealing and eating pets.
While Ohio and Colorado are not competitors in the presidential race, the Republican message on immigration resonates with those states. Vance recently campaigned in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, a city of 70,000 where refugees from Africa and Asia have been resettled, and promoted Trump’s plan to increase deportations. He argues that small communities have been “encroached upon” by immigrants taxing local resources.
Mr. Trump has vowed to deport not only “criminals,” which he shared with Harris, but also Haitians living legally in Springfield and even That also includes those whom he has denounced as “pro-Hamas radicals” who protest on college campuses. Mr Trump has said he would revoke the Temporary Protected Status that allows Haitians to live in the US because of widespread poverty and violence in their home nation.
Ms Harris has moved to the right on immigration, presenting herself as a candidate who can get tough on border policing, considered one of her biggest weaknesses.
published – October 12, 2024 11:16 am IST