The June 28th debate between Joe Biden and Donald Trump was a contentious affair, marked by Biden’s occasional lapses and Trump’s barrage of over 30 false claims. Increasingly, liberal media outlets, spearheaded by The New York Times, are advocating for Biden to step aside in favor of a younger, more articulate candidate.
Amid the debate’s chaos, Trump’s inflammatory remarks about immigrants stood out, using them as scapegoats for the nation’s problems. His rhetoric, captured in a CNN debate transcript, painted immigrants as the primary threat to American society.
Discussing job creation, Trump claimed, “The only jobs he [Biden] created are for illegal immigrants and bounceback jobs; they’re bounced back from the COVID.”
Trump further asserted that immigrants pose a severe threat: “There have been many young women murdered by the same people [immigrants] he [Biden] allows to come across our border. We have a border that’s the most dangerous place anywhere in the world – considered the most dangerous place anywhere in the world. And he opened it up, and these killers are coming into our country, and they are raping and killing women. And it’s a terrible thing.”
He continued his attack, stating, “He [Biden] decided to open up our border, open up our country to people that are from prisons, people that are from mental institutions, insane asylum, terrorists. We have the largest number of terrorists coming into our country right now. All terrorists, all over the world – not just in South America, all over the world. They come from the Middle East, everywhere. All over the world, they’re pouring in. And this guy just left it open.”
Trump’s comments grew more dire: “He’s [Biden’s] the one that killed people with the bad border, including hundreds of thousands of people dying, and also killing our citizens when they come in. We – we are living right now in a rat’s nest. They’re killing our people in New York, in California, in every state in the union, because we don’t have borders anymore. Every state is now a border.”
His accusations continued, “And because of his ridiculous, insane and very stupid policies, people are coming in and they’re killing our citizens at a level that we’ve never seen. We call it migrant crime. I call it Biden migrant crime.”
He added, “They’re killing our citizens at a level that we’ve never seen before. And you’re reading it like these three incredible young girls over the last few days. One of them, I just spoke to the mother, and we just had the funeral for this girl, 12 years old.”
“This is horrible what’s taken place. What’s taken place in our country, we’re literally an uncivilized country now.”
“He doesn’t want it to be. He just doesn’t know. He opened the borders nobody’s ever seen anything like. And we have to get a lot of these people out and we have to get them out fast, because they’re going to destroy our country.”
“Just take a look at where they’re living. They’re living in luxury hotels in New York City and other places.”
On the financial burden of immigrants, Trump remarked, “But Social Security, he’s [Biden’s] destroying it. Because millions of people are pouring into our country, and they’re putting them on to Social Security; they’re putting them on to Medicare, Medicaid. They’re putting them in our hospitals. They’re taking the place of our citizens.”
“They’re – what they’re doing to the V.A., to our veterans, is unbelievable. Our veterans are living in the street and these people are living in luxury hotels. He doesn’t know what he’s doing. And it – it’s really coming back. I’ve never seen such anger in our country before.”
Evaluating Biden’s presidency, Trump declared, “He wants open borders. He wants our country to either be destroyed or he wants to pick up those people as voters. And I don’t think – we just can’t let it happen. If he wins this election, our country doesn’t have a chance. Not even a chance of coming out of this rut. We probably won’t have a country left anymore. That’s how bad it is. He is the worst [president] in history by far.”
Trump’s harsh stance on immigration is not new. A November 2023 article in The New York Times quoted Stephen Miller, a former Trump White House aide and architect of border control efforts, saying, “Trump will unleash the vast arsenal of federal powers to implement the most spectacular migration crackdown.”
Trump’s 2024 campaign is centered on portraying immigrants as the nation’s top domestic threat. He has vowed to “carry out the largest domestic deportation operation in American history” if elected. At a December 2023 rally in New Hampshire, he stated, “They’re poisoning the blood of our country. That’s what they’ve done. They poison — mental institutions and prisons all over the world. Not just in South America. Not just the three or four countries that we think about. But all over the world they’re coming into our country — from Africa, from Asia, all over the world. They’re pouring into our country.”
In a March 2024 interview with Right Side Broadcasting Network, Trump labeled immigrants as “rough people, in many cases from jails, prisons, from mental institutions, insane asylums. You know, insane asylums — that’s ‘Silence of the Lambs’ stuff.”
At an April 2024 rally in Grand Rapids, MI, Trump was particularly vehement, stating, “The Democrats say, ‘Please don’t call them animals. They’re humans.’ I said, ‘No, they’re not humans, they’re not humans, they’re animals’… Nancy Pelosi told me that. She said, ‘Please don’t use the word animals when you’re talking about these people.’ I said, ‘I’ll use the word animal because that’s what they are.’”
Most alarming, in April 2023, the Heritage Foundation released its “Project 2025: Presidential Transition Project.” This 900-page document, developed by right-wing groups, outlines a comprehensive plan for a second Trump administration.
Project 2025 proposes the dismantling of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and its reformation into a “stand-alone border and immigration agency.” It also calls for the privatization of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) and the expansion of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to expedite the deportation process nationwide. The plan aims to curtail visa categories, significantly reduce asylum and refugee statuses, and expand immigrant apprehension across the entire country.
The implications of Trump’s rhetoric and policy proposals are deeply concerning. Targeting immigrants as “poisoning the blood of our country” and labeling them “animals” signals a dangerous escalation in political discourse. As Trump’s campaign progresses, the potential for mass arrests, imprisonment, and deportation looms large.
In December 2023, during a town hall with Sean Hannity in Davenport, IA, Trump made his agenda clear: “We love this guy,” Trump said of Hannity. “He says, ‘You’re not going to be a dictator, are you?’ I said: ‘No, no, no, other than day one. We’re closing the border, and we’re drilling, drilling, drilling. After that, I’m not a dictator.’”
The potential duration of Trump’s “dictatorship” was left unaddressed.
During the Nazi era in Germany, the list of state enemies expanded continually, including Jews, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Roma people, political opponents, those deemed “deviant,” and many others. Trump’s current “enemies” list starts with immigrants. The question remains: who will be next?