Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump claimed that immigrants from Africa, the Middle East and elsewhere were “building an army” to attack Americans “from within”, once again using facts about migrants being in the US illegally.
During a rally on Thursday in the mainly Hispanic and black neighbourhood of New York City’s South Bronx, Trump sought to portray migrants from China, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and other countries as a violent threat.
“Almost everyone is a male and they look like fighting age. I think they’re building an army,” Trump said to a few thousand supporters who gathered to hear him in the South Bronx’s Crotona Park. “They want to get us from within.”
“African-Americans are getting slaughtered, Hispanic-Americans are getting slaughtered,” he said.
Trump supporters at the campaign rally. Photo: AP
Throughout his campaign, Trump has repeatedly used language to accuse immigrants in the US illegally of fuelling violent crime, calling them “animals” responsible for “poisoning the blood” of the country.
As evidence, he points to individual instances of crimes.
“We are not going to let these people come in and take our city away from us and take our country away,” Trump said, vowing to carry out “the largest criminal deportation operation in our country’s history” if re-elected to the White House.
Trump also sought to tie record levels of migrants caught crossing the US-Mexico border illegally with the economic plight of black and Hispanic voters, arguing, without evidence, that migrants were taking their jobs.