Trump toughens rhetoric: immigrants “attack villages”

Donald Trump has ramped up his rhetoric against immigrants, claiming they are attacking “villages and cities” in America. The latest comments represent an escalation in Trump’s attempt to win votes by portraying immigration as a threat to U.S. citizens. The comments follow his remarks about Haitians and other comments about immigrants at the presidential debate with Kamala Harris. Trump’s running mate JD Vance has also ramped up his rhetoric against Haitians, calling them “illegal aliens” even though they are here legally, and (falsely) accusing them of increasing the murder rate in Springfield, Ohio.

Trump’s comments in North Carolina

On September 21, 2024, at a rally in Wilmington, North Carolina, Trump focused on the dangers he believes immigrants pose to Americans. “And you see how bad it’s getting,” he said. “When you look at what’s happening with the migrants attacking towns and cities all over the Midwest, especially now, but it’s all over.”

Instead of describing people seeking work or refuge in another country, Trump’s language conjures up images of immigrant armies moving through the Midwest and attacking Americans in “villages,” as in the television series game of Thrones. It fits with other rhetorical statements in his speech: “A vote for Kamala Harris means 40 or 50 million more illegal immigrants coming across our borders and stealing your money, stealing your jobs, stealing your lives.”

Throughout the rally, Trump repeatedly criticized immigration without acknowledging available information that might contradict his statements. He claimed he had “fixed” the border. However, illegal immigration increased significantly during Donald Trump’s time in office. Apprehensions at the southwest border, an indicator of illegal entries, increased by more than 100 percent (from 408,870 to 851,508) between fiscal year 2016 and fiscal year 2019, according to an analysis by the National Foundation for American Policy. Border Patrol encounters declined after the Covid-19 pandemic began. However, Border Patrol encounters at the southwest border increased from 16,182 in April 2020 to 69,032 in October 2020, a 327% increase.

Despite Donald Trump’s criticism of the Biden-Harris administration, the number of illegal entries due to arrests at the border was lower in July and August 2024 than in Trump’s final month in office. In January 2021, there were 75,316 encounters with Border Patrol along the southwest border. That’s well above the 56,408 encounters reported in July 2024. In August 2024, there were 58,038 encounters with Border Patrol.

Venezuelans in Aurora and other claims

A recent report by a Denver news station refuted Donald Trump’s claim in Wilmington that “Venezuelan gangs have taken over entire apartment buildings in Aurora, Colorado. The governor is scared to death.” Aurora Republican Mayor Mike Coffman said he was “excited” about the prospect of a Trump visit, but “I think it’s a great opportunity to show the president that we are not a city that is being overrun by Venezuelan gangs.” Denver7 reported, “The mayor said he was not happy with the way Trump has portrayed Aurora. He said the story that has been spread has hurt the city.”

The mayor echoed the claims about the apartment buildings that Trump made during the presidential debate, among other things, but Coffman has walked back his earlier statements. “My comments were based on the briefings I received from the initial police officers,” Coffman said. “I think we’ve since found out that some elements of those briefings are questionable. But at one point in time, we had a real problem in some of the apartment complexes.”

Trump has not provided any evidence to support his claims that the Venezuelan government has devised a plan to send criminals to the United States. “There is no evidence that the Venezuelan government is systematically or selectively releasing and deporting prisoners,” the New York Times.

Trump has often said that governments are emptying “mental institutions and asylums” to send migrants to the U.S. CNN reached out to the Trump campaign in 2023 and could not provide evidence to support this claim. Immigration experts have said it is not realistic to expect that people with severe mental health issues could survive the dangerous journey thousands of miles north to the U.S. border or have the resources necessary to do so successfully.

Trump also claimed that North Carolina residents could not get into the state’s emergency rooms because of “illegal aliens.” If this were true, one would expect there to be extensive news coverage of residents suffering or dying after being turned away at North Carolina hospitals. In May 2024, CBS 42 reported on potential problems residents faced after a hospital in Martin County, North Carolina, closed due to “financial challenges related to declining population and utilization trends.”

The Trump-Vance campaign team continues to attack Haitians

CNN’s Daniel Dale debunked a recent claim by JD Vance, Donald Trump’s running mate, that Haitians are responsible for the rising number of murders in Springfield, Ohio. “The number of murders has gone up 81% because Kamala Harris allowed something to happen to this small community,” Vance said.

“In my 21 years in the district attorney’s office, there has not been a single murder involving the Haitian community – either as a victim or as a perpetrator,” said Daniel Driscoll, the Republican chief prosecutor in Clark County, in an interview with CNN. Dale also noted, “There have been more murders overall in Springfield under President Donald Trump than under Biden-Harris.”

Analysts are concerned about increasing rhetoric that they see as an attempt to “dehumanize” immigrants. Donald Trump made derogatory rumors about Haitians a central argument against immigration during the presidential debate with Kamala Harris. “In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs,” he said. “The people who came here. They’re eating the cats. They’re eating – they’re eating the pets of the people who live there. And that’s what’s happening in our country. And it’s a disgrace.”

Blaming immigrants for eating pets was an urban legend in America years before Trump’s rumor about Haitians in Springfield, Ohio. “Don’t be too quick to believe the statement … that Asian refugees here ‘all the time’ grill dogs,” wrote folklore specialist Jan Harold Brunvand, professor emeritus at the University of Utah, in 1986. Brunvand found stories from the 1980s about Asian refugees eating pets that had cropped up in Stockton, California, Fairfax, Virginia, and elsewhere. None of the stories turned out to be true.

Donald Trump has promised to visit Aurora and Springfield.