Trump’s theme: Fear migrants
Faced with big losses in midterms, he turns to his animating issue
President Donald Trump’s closing campaign argument is now clear: Build tent cities for migrants. End birthright citizenship. Fear the caravan. Send active-duty troops to the border. Refuse asylum.
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s closing argument is now clear: Build tent cities for migrants. End birthright citizenship. Fear the caravan. Send active-duty troops to the border. Refuse asylum.
Immigration has been the animating issue of the Trump presidency, and now — with the possibility that Republicans could face significant losses in the midterm elections Tuesday — the president has fully embraced a dark, antiimmigrant message in the hope that stoking fear will motivate voters to reject Democrats.
In a rambling speech Thursday afternoon that was riddled with falsehoods and vague promises to confront a “crisis” at the border, Trump used the official backdrop of the White House to step up his efforts to demonize a caravan of Central Americans that has been making its way through Mexico, assail Democrats, and promote a vision of the United States that would be better off with fewer immigrants. The president said he had ordered troops to respond to any migrants in the caravan who throw rocks as if they were brandishing firearms, saying, “I told them: Consider it a rifle.” He said his government had already begun to construct “massive cities of tents” to imprison legal and illegal immigrants who try to enter the United States.
“This is a defense of our country,” Trump declared from the Roosevelt Room. “We have no choice. We will defend our borders. We will defend our country.”
The president also played fast and loose with the truth. He repeated his oft-stated, misleading description of the situation south of the border, saying that “large, organized caravans” are heading toward the United States, filled with “tough people, in many cases.”
In recent weeks, Trump has promised a number of actions to demonstrate a renewed crackdown on immigrants.
Mostly what the president offered was a repeat of the angry rhetoric that has been a central theme of his campaign rallies.
A new proposal to give migrant families the choice to willingly separate from their children? “We are working” on it, Trump said. The presidential proclamation and regulation aides had promised to bring an end to asylum for unauthorized immigrants? They are “finalizing” them, he added. He promised an executive order next week, providing no details.
In the past week, as a series of pipe bombs sent to prominent opponents of the president and the killing of 11 people at a Pittsburgh synagogue dominated the news, the president’s political team has urged him to put renewed emphasis on the migrants heading for the border.
The president did not need much convincing. On Wednesday afternoon, he tweeted out a 53second, expletive-filled video that features immigrants charged with violent crimes and images of a throng of brown-skinned men breaching a barrier and running forward. The president’s message was clear: Immigrants will kill you, and the Democrats are to blame.
“It is outrageous what the Democrats are doing to our Country,” Trump wrote in the tweet, part of a grim warning about the dangers of immigrants that has left some Republicans — including House Speaker Paul Ryan — uneasy heading into Tuesday’s voting.
Trump appeared to promise a lethal response from the military if migrants threw rocks at soldiers. At Northern Command, the military headquarters overseeing the newly announced deployments to the border, military officials were shocked upon hearing the president’s comments.
A Defense Department official said the U.S. military’s rules of engagement allowed deadly force to be used if a service member was faced with an imminent threat of death or injury. But the official said the military units headed to the border with weapons, such as the military police, would keep them stored unless told otherwise. The official could not say if they would be issued ammunition but did not expect them to be in a position to use their weapons.