By Tim Reid
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Donald Trump on Saturday delivered some of his harshest rhetoric against immigrants who have crossed the border illegally and committed crimes, especially against young women, while also escalating his personal insults against Kamala Harris.
In the battleground state of Wisconsin, Trump called Democratic Vice President Harris, who on Friday visited the US-Mexico border for the first time in her 2024 presidential campaign, “mentally retarded” and “mentally retarded.”
The Republican presidential candidate was flanked by posters of immigrants arrested in the U.S. illegally for murder and other violent crimes, and banners reading “End Migrant Crime” and “Deport Illegals Now.”
His speech was unusually devoted almost entirely to undocumented immigrants. He called those who had committed violent crimes “monsters,” “stone-cold killers,” and “vile animals.”
Trump is locked in a neck-and-neck race with Harris ahead of the November 5 election. Immigration and the southern border are among the most important issues for voters, according to polls.
The former president blamed Harris and Democratic President Joe Biden for allowing undocumented immigrants into the US, accusing some migrants of wanting to “rape, pillage, steal, pillage and murder the people of the United States of America.” .
At one point, Trump admitted, “This is a dark speech.”
Trump’s speech took place in the small Wisconsin town of Prairie du Chien, where a Venezuelan was illegally detained in the US in September for allegedly sexually assaulting a woman and assaulting her daughter.
About 7 million migrants have been arrested illegally crossing the U.S.-Mexico border during the Biden administration, according to government data, a record number that has fueled criticism of Harris and Biden from Trump and fellow Republicans.
During 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 preventing fentanyl from entering the US a “top priority.”
Trump also repeated his false claim that his 2020 election defeat to Biden was fraudulent. If re-elected, and “if allowed,” Trump said he would prosecute people he blames for his loss.
Studies generally show there is no evidence that immigrants are more likely to commit crimes 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, avoiding cases involving male victims.
Trump’s opponents accuse him of cynically exploiting grieving families to fuel his narrative that foreign-born, often Spanish-speaking, arrivals are part of an invading army.
But some families of the victims have welcomed Trump’s focus on the issue of violent crime and the death toll among teens from the opioid drug fentanyl, much of which enters the U.S. through the southern border.
Several parents who had lost children to illegal attacks by immigrants in the US, or to fentanyl, expressed support before Trump’s comments on Saturday.
(Reporting by Tim Reid in Washington; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)
