Donald Trump on Saturday deployed some of his harshest
rhetoric against immigrants who have crossed the border illegally and committed
crimes, especially against young women, while he also escalated his personal
insults against Kamala Harris.
In the battleground state of Wisconsin, Trump called
Democratic Vice President Harris, who on Friday visited the U.S.-Mexico border
for the first time in her 2024 presidential campaign, "mentally
impaired" and "mentally disabled".
The Republican presidential candidate was flanked by
posters of immigrants in the U.S. illegally who have been arrested for murder
and other violent crimes, and banners saying "End Migrant Crime" and
"Deport Illegals Now."
His speech was unusually devoted almost entirely to
undocumented immigrants. He called those who had committed violent crime
"monsters," "stone-cold killers" and "vile
animals".
Trump is locked in a close race with Harris ahead of
the Nov. 5 election. Immigration and the southern border are one of the top
issues for voters, according to opinion polls.
Sarafina Chitika, a Harris spokesperson, said after
Trump's speech: "He's got nothing 'inspiring' to offer the American
people, just darkness."
The former president blamed Harris and Democratic
President Joe Biden for allowing undocumented immigrants into the U.S.,
accusing some migrants of wanting to "rape, pillage, thieve, plunder and
kill the people of the United States of America."
At one point Trump admitted: "This is a dark
speech".
Israel said on Saturday it killed Hezbollah leader
Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah in a powerful airstrike in Beirut's southern suburbs
Friday.
Trump's speech was in the small Wisconsin city of
Prairie du Chien, where a Venezuelan in the U.S. illegally was detained in
September for allegedly sexually assaulting a woman and attacking her daughter.
Some 7 million migrants have been arrested crossing
the U.S.-Mexico border illegally during Biden's administration, according to
government data, a record high number that has fueled criticism of Harris and
Biden from Trump and fellow Republicans.
In her visit to the border on Friday, Harris outlined
her plans to fix "our broken immigration system" while accusing Trump
of "fanning the flames of fear and division" over the impact of
immigrants on American life.
Harris also called for tighter asylum restrictions and
vowed to make a "top priority" of stopping fentanyl from entering the
U.S.
Trump also repeated his false claim that his 2020
election defeat to Biden was fraudulent. If reelected, and "if
allowed", Trump said he would prosecute people he blames for his loss
then.
Studies generally find there is no evidence immigrants
commit crimes at a higher rate than native-born Americans and critics say
Trump's rhetoric reinforces racist tropes.
Trump typically focuses on young women allegedly
killed by Hispanic assailants to drive home that message, eschewing cases that
involve male victims.
Trump's opponents accuse him of cynically exploiting
grieving families to fuel his narrative that foreign-born, often Hispanic,
arrivals are part of an invading army.
But some of the families of the victims have welcomed
Trump's focus on the issue of violent crime and the death toll of teenagers
caused by the opioid drug fentanyl, much of which crosses into the U.S. over
the southern border.
Several parents who had lost children to attacks by
immigrants in the U.S. illegally, or to fentanyl, spoke in support of him
before Trump's remarks on Saturday.