Immigration: ‘Animals, savages’: After Springfield attack, Trump again fuels anti-immigrant rhetoric
In a recent campaign speech in Aurora, Colorado, Donald Trump just like Springfield tried to paint a dire picture of a country ‘occupied’ by criminal foreigners.
His speech was marked by division and exaggerated claims about immigration. “America is known, all throughout the world, as ‘Occupied America.’ They call it ‘occupied.’ We’re being occupied by a criminal force,” Trump said, in an 80-minute speech that was focused almost entirely on immigration.
“But to everyone here in Colorado and all across our nation, I make this pledge and vow to you: November 5, 2024, will be Liberation Day in America,” he added, echoed by visuals of foreign suspected criminals.
Trump’s claims have stirred fears of an invasion of migrants, asserting that these individuals pose a violent threat to Americans.
He pointed to a recent viral video showing armed Latinos rampaging in a building in Aurora, using it to paint a false narrative of a community terrorised by Latin American migrants.
The incident led to widespread, inaccurate narratives depicting the Denver suburb as being terrorized by Latin American migrants, bolstering Trump’s campaign rhetoric that portrays the United States as being overrun by what he refers to as “savages” and “animals.”
With the elections nearing and a neck-to-neck fight for the White House, Trump has divided his closing pitch between a protectionist economic message and riling his largely white, working-class supporters by demonizing immigrants.
He labelled Harris as a ‘criminal,’ Trump said falsely that Venezuelan gangs in Colorado had been given permission to shoot police, and spoke darkly of an “enemy within” that he defined as “all the scum that we have to deal with that hate our country.”
The former president proposed using the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 for mass deportations, calling his initiative “Operation Aurora.”
Local officials, including Aurora’s Republican mayor, criticised Trump’s claims as grossly exaggerated, saying that the city is safe and not overrun by gangs.
