Donald Trump is leaning into a nativist, anti-immigrant message in the final stage of his third presidential campaign, advancing a closing argument centered on fearmongering, falsehoods and stereotypes about migrants as polls show his edge on economic issues fading.
In recent days, the former president has suggested that “bad genes” are to blame for people in the country illegally who have committed murders, reprised his warnings about a migrant “invasion” and suggested Vice President Kamala Harris’s handling of border issues shows she is “mentally impaired.”
He will campaign in Aurora, Colo., on Friday, after promoting false claims about Venezuelan gangs taking over residential buildings in the Denver suburb.
Illegal crossings at the U.S.-Mexico border are down significantly this year after the Biden administration imposed sweeping restrictions on asylum, and most experts say that immigration has boosted the U.S. economy. But polls show Trump has a clear advantage on the issues of immigration and border security, and the former president and his allies are wagering that his false and exaggerated claims about migrants will excite his base and propel him to victory.
Trump’s critics are alarmed by his tactics and warn that they stoke racial divisions and fear of migrants.
“He doesn’t even respect us,” Marisela Sandoval, 39, a unionized Las Vegas hospital worker who was born in Dallas and grew up in Mexico, said in a recent interview when asked about Trump’s rhetoric. “It’s just so much hating against immigrants. It’s dangerous. So disrespectful.”
His base, however, is elated.
“Today I make you this promise: I will liberate Wisconsin and our entire nation from this mass migration invasion of murderers, child predators, drug dealers, gang members and thugs. It’ll be liberated,” Trump said before a crowd of thousands at a rally in Juneau, Wis., over the weekend.
The crowd roared. “Trump! Trump! Trump!” they cheered, offering the loudest standing ovation of the rally.
Trump has frequently used dehumanizing language to describe migrants, referring to them as “savage criminals” and “animals.” He has said undocumented immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country,” and he has promoted false claims about migrants eating pets in Springfield, Ohio, and bankrupting the small Pennsylvania town of Charleroi. His ads mentioning immigration frequently refer to migrants as “illegals” and include ominous imagery of people flooding the U.S.-Mexico border.
The ex-president has long relied on incendiary rhetoric against immigrants as a political tactic, dating back to the launch of his first presidential campaign in 2015. Since then, he has further sharpened those attacks and leaned even harder on immigration — which has been a centerpiece of his 2024 campaign, as it was in 2016 — as polls have shown that he is losing his edge on the economy.
Trump himself has suggested the border is a bigger issue than the economy.
“I know they do all these polls, and the polls say it’s the economy,” he said at the Juneau rally, “And the polls say very strongly it’s inflation, and I can understand it a little bit. To me, it’s the horrible people that we’re allowing into our country that are destroying our country.”
Karoline Leavitt, a Trump campaign spokeswoman, said in a statement that Trump remains focused on both the economy and immigration, which poll as top-of-mind for voters.
“Day in and day out, President Trump focuses on the issues that matter most to Americans: inflation hurting their pocketbooks and illegal immigration invading their country,” Leavitt said. “He will continue to discuss both issues over the next 26 days.”
At recent campaign stops, Trump has distorted official Homeland Security Department statistics on undocumented immigrants with homicide convictions, falsely claiming that the Biden administration “released” them when, in reality, the government numbers Trump is citing span decades and include people who are serving time in state and federal prisons.
His promises to expel undocumented immigrants — and many people who are legally present in the United States — have drawn some of the largest cheers at his rallies. During the Juneau rally, cheers erupted again as Trump promised to end “the invasion of savage criminals” and begin the “the largest deportation in American history” on his first day in office.
He repeatedly leaned on fear tactics in his remarks, saying that Harris, if elected, will “inundate your towns with illegal alien criminals” and “even if they haven’t arrived yet, they will be.”
Greg Fredrick, 57, who attended the Juneau rally, agrees with the former president’s concern about migrants spreading across the country.
“In Dodge County, we’re not feeling it, but other spots are, and it will come this way,” said Fredrick, a contractor in the township of Lebanon. “We need to seal the border up. It’s horrible.”
Fredrick raised concern over the number of illegal border crossings by migrants coming from China and other nations not typically known to come to the United States through the southern border. “Something’s fishy with that. It’s not right,” he said, adding he’s worried another terrorist attack could be coming without more border security. “Something bad’s going to happen,” he said.
Trump and his running mate, Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), often blame immigrants for the country’s problems. Trump has claimed that migrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border are taking “Black and Hispanic jobs,” a characterization that many Americans have found offensive and economists said was false. And Vance has called illegal migration “one of the most significant drivers of home prices in the country,” arguing that migrants are competing with Americans for limited homes — a claim that has been debunked by economists and housing experts.
“If Kamala is reelected, your town, and every town just like it, all across Wisconsin and all across our country — the heartland, the coast, it doesn’t matter — will be transformed into a third-world hellhole,” Trump said during an event in Prairie du Chien, Wis.
A Fox News poll last month found that 51 percent of registered voters favor Trump on the economy, compared with 46 percent who favor Harris. That’s compared with a 15-point advantage that Trump had over Biden in March.
Inflation dropped in September to its lowest level in more than three years, and the Federal Reserve cut interest rates last month for the first time in more than four years. But many Americans continue to express concerns about the cost of living.