Michael Wyke/Associated Press
Former President Donald Trump speaks at a campaign event in Houston on November 2, 2023.
CNN
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former president donald trump He visited Texas, near the U.S.-Mexico border, on Sunday, escalating his anti-immigrant rhetoric and pushing for tougher immigration policy proposals.
During the visit, the front-runner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination received the endorsement of Texas Governor Greg Abbott.
“We need Donald J. Trump back as president of the United States,” the Republican governor said at an event with former President Trump in Edinburg, Texas.
Speaking to a small crowd at South Texas International Airport, President Trump slammed President Joe Biden over his handling of the border, claiming the United States currently has “the most insecure border in history.” .
The former president has been increasingly vocal on the campaign trail, pledging to launch “the largest internal deportation operation in American history” if he wins the White House next year. In comments echoing white supremacist rhetoric, he said illegal immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country” and likened immigrants coming to the United States to the fictional serial killer Hannibal Lecter.
“This has never happened before. Our country is being invaded. This is an invasion,” said Trump, who has made reducing illegal immigration a cornerstone of his 2024 election campaign. This was announced at a recent gathering.
If elected to a second term, President Trump plans to broadly expand his administration’s hard-line immigration policies that restrict both legal and illegal immigration. The plan includes rounding up illegal immigrants already in the United States and putting them in detention camps to await deportation. Such a proposal would require the construction of large-scale camps to house immigrants awaiting deportation, as well as the use of federal and local law enforcement agencies to help apprehend illegal immigrants across the country. There is.
“Stopping aggression at our nation’s southern border is an urgent national security need and one of President Trump’s top priorities. To that end, he , has laid out the most detailed program ever to secure our borders, deter illegal immigration, and remove people who should never have been allowed into our country in the first place,” a Trump campaign spokesperson said. said in a statement to CNN.
Biden campaign officials last week denounced the policy as “un-American.”
“Simply put, Donald Trump is targeting immigrants, our rights, our security, and our democracy. And that’s what will actually be on the ballot next year,” said Biden campaign manager. Julie Chavez Rodriguez said.
The Biden campaign also slammed President Trump’s visit to the U.S.-Mexico border, calling the former president’s immigration policies “inhumane” and “draconian.”
The former president has pointed out that the Israel-Hamas war has fueled fear and anti-immigrant sentiment in the United States and advocated a crackdown on immigration. He promotes “ideological screening” of immigrants, blocking immigrants and refugees from Muslim-majority countries and staying in the U.S. on visas he claims have “jihadist sympathies.” They are deporting people.
This story has been updated with additional information.
CNN’s Priscilla Alvarez contributed to this report.
