Written by Tim Reid
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Donald Trump on Saturday delivered some of his harshest rhetoric against immigrants who cross the border illegally and commit crimes, especially against young women, while he stepped up his insults against Kamala Harris.
At the Wisconsin military base, Trump called Democratic Vice President Harris, who on Friday visited the US-Mexico border for the first time in his 2024 presidential campaign, “mentally retarded” and “mentally retarded”.
The Republican presidential candidate was surrounded by posters of illegal immigrants in the US who have been arrested for murder and other violent crimes, and banners reading “End Immigration Crime” and “Deport Illegals Now.”
His speech was unusually directed at undocumented immigrants. He called those who committed violent crimes “monsters,” “stone-cold killers” and “vicious animals.”
Trump is locked in a close race with Harris ahead of the Nov. 5 election. Immigration and the southern border are among the top issues for voters, according to polls.
The former president accused Harris and Democratic President Joe Biden of allowing undocumented immigrants to enter the US, accusing some immigrants of wanting to “rape, rob, steal, rob and kill the people of the United States of America.”
At one point Trump admitted: “This is a black speech”.
Trump's speech was in the small Wisconsin town of Prairie du Chien, where a Venezuelan national in the US was illegally arrested in September for allegedly sexually assaulting a woman and assaulting her daughter.
About 7 million more migrants have been arrested crossing the US-Mexico border illegally during the Biden administration, according to government data, a record high that has drawn Harris and Biden criticism from Trump and other Republicans.
During his visit to the border on Friday, Harris outlined his plans to fix “our 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 stricter asylum restrictions and vowed to make it “a top priority” to stop fentanyl from entering the US.
Trump repeated his false claim that his 2020 election loss to Biden was a fraud. If he is re-elected, and “if it's allowed”, Trump said he will prosecute people who suspect his disappearance at the time.
Studies often find no evidence that immigrants commit crimes at higher rates than native-born Americans and critics say Trump's rhetoric reinforces racism.
Trump has tended to focus on young women allegedly killed by Spanish attackers to drive home that message, avoiding cases involving male victims.
Opponents of Trump accuse him of exploiting grieving families to advance his narrative that immigrants, often from Spain, are part of an invading army.
But some of the victims' families welcomed Trump's focus on the issue of violent crime and the number of youth deaths caused by the opioid drug fentanyl, most of which cross into the US over the southern border.
Several parents who have lost children to illegal immigration in the US, or to fentanyl, spoke out in support of him ahead of Trump's remarks on Saturday.
