In a campaign rally in critical battleground state Wisconsin over the weekend, President Donald Trump blamed Kamala Harris for “erasing the US border” and vowed to end to “liberate Wisconsin from the “migrant invasion.”
“I will liberate Wisconsin from the mass migrant invasion. We’re going to liberate the country,” Trump said at the rally on Saturday, where he clearly linked his Democratic opponent to the unprecedented rise in illegal border crossings by dangerous and unvetted men.
Trump believes, and rightly so, that frustration and anger over illegal immigration by most Americans will translate to votes in Wisconsin and other crucial swing states. The Republican nominee has denounced people who cross the U.S.-Mexico border as “poisoning the blood of the country” and vowed to stage the largest deportation operation in American history if elected.
To emphasize Harris’ failures at the border, Trump repeatedly brought up Harris’ event in Douglas, Arizona, from the previous night, where she announced a push to further restrict asylum claims beyond Biden’s executive order announced earlier this year.
“I had to sit there and listen” to Harris last night Trump said, eliciting cheers. “And who puts it on? Fox News. They should not be allowed to put it on. It’s all lies. Everything she says is lies.”
The Republican nominee also intensified his personal attacks against Harris, insulting her as “mentally impaired” and a “disaster.”
At Trump’s event, on either side of the stage were poster-sized mug shots of men in the US illegally accused of a crime, including Alejandro Jose Coronel Zarate, a case Trump cited in his speech.
Wisconsin Republicans in recent days have cited the story of Coronel Zarate’s arrest in Prairie du Chien as more evidence that people in the country illegally are committing crimes across the United States, not just in southern border states. Prosecutors charged Coronel Zarate on Sept. 18 with sexual assault, child abuse, strangulation, and domestic abuse.
Republican US Rep. from Wisconsin, Derrick Van Orden, told the crowd that Trump was the only one who could restore order.
“You’re going to see the one man who has enough strength and courage of conviction to stand up to anyone up to and including being shot in the head for us,” he said.
Poll after poll shows Americans believe Trump would do a better job than Harris on handling immigration.