By Tim Reed
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Donald Trump on Saturday unleashed some of his harshest rhetoric against immigrants who have crossed the border illegally and committed crimes, particularly against young women, while also stepping up his personal insults against Kamala Harris.
In Wisconsin, Trump described Democratic Vice President Harris, who on Friday visited the US-Mexico border for the first time in her 2024 presidential campaign, as “mentally disabled” and “mentally disabled.”
The Republican presidential candidate was surrounded by posters of illegal immigrants in the United States who have been arrested for murder and other violent crimes, and signs reading “Stop Immigrant Crime” and “Deport Illegal Immigrants Now.”
His speech was unusually devoted almost entirely to illegal immigrants. He described those who committed violent crimes as “monsters”, “cold killers” and “vile animals”.
Trump is in a close race with Harris before the November 5 elections. Immigration and the southern border are among the most important issues for voters, according to opinion polls.
“He has nothing ‘inspirational’ to offer the American people, only darkness,” Harris spokeswoman Sarafina Citiqua said after Trump’s speech.
The former president blamed Harris and Democratic President Joe Biden for allowing illegal immigrants to enter the United States, and accused some immigrants of wanting to “rape, rob, steal and kill the people of the United States of America.”
At one point, Trump admitted, “This is dark rhetoric.”
Trump’s speech was delivered in the small Wisconsin town of Prairie du Chien, where a Venezuelan in the United States was illegally detained in September on charges of sexually assaulting a woman and attacking her daughter.
About 7 million migrants were apprehended illegally crossing the US-Mexico border during the Biden administration, according to government data, a record number that drew criticism of Harris and Biden from Trump and his fellow Republicans.
On 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 tougher restrictions on asylum and pledged to make it a “top priority” to prevent fentanyl from entering the United States.
Trump also repeated his false claim that his 2020 election defeat to Biden was fraudulent. Trump said that if he is re-elected, and “if he is allowed to,” he will prosecute the people he blames for his loss.
Studies have generally found no evidence that 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 attackers 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 immigrants, most of whom are Hispanic, are part of an invading army.
But some victims’ families welcomed Trump’s focus on the issue of violent crime and the number of teens killed by the opioid fentanyl, many of which cross into the United States through the southern border.
Several parents who have lost children to attacks by immigrants in the United States illegally, or to fentanyl, spoke in support of him before Trump’s comments on Saturday.