Trump says he’ll close the borders to migrants on his first day of government
Former U.S. President and 2024 Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump takes the stage during the final day of the 2024 Republican National Convention at the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, July 18, 2024. Photo by Brendan SMIALOWSKI / AFP
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said Thursday that crime in Venezuela and El Salvador is falling, not because of their rulers, but because they are sending criminals to the United States.
In a strong speech against irregular migration, Trump assured the Republican National Convention that in El Salvador – where President Nayib Bukele waged a war on gangs – and in Venezuela, criminality fell “because they are sending their killers to the United States of America.”
He went with a Republican convention in Caracas, suggesting the city was safe because the criminals were no longer there.
He recalled that in Houston, the murder of a teenager was charged two Venezuelan migrants.
Without mentioning names, he confessed that he “shouted his way” to a president who “has great publicity for being a good pastor of his country” and transforming criminals.
“It’s not like that, it’s sending its criminals to the United States,” he insisted.
Donald Trump made it clear on Thursday what his priority will be if he wins the U.S. presidential elections: finish the wall on his border with Mexico and start a major deportation plan for “murderers” arriving from Latin America.
With his ear still bandaled after he was injured in an assassination attempt, the former governor closed with his speech at the Republican National Convention in Milwuakee, formally accepting the nomination as a presidential candidate.
His first words were a call to unity, saying he would rule for all Americans and not just half, and asked not to criminalize differences of opinion.
At a poignant start, he observed a minute of silence in honor of a firefighter, who died in the attack he suffered on Saturday in Pennsylvania. And he said “God” was on his side, preventing him from getting shot.
But then he focused all his artillery on the migration crisis that the country is going through, with thousands of foreigners arriving from various latitudes, in search of better living conditions.
He returned to his usual description of America as an apocalyptic ruin that needs to be saved by him.
Finish the wall
Trump vowed to end that crisis and finish lifting the wall on his southern border with Mexico.
“We will put an end to the illegal immigration crisis by closing our border and finishing the wall, most of which I have already built,” said the former governor. “The invasion on our southern border is going to stop it and we will do it fast,” he said.
“They come from every corner of the world, not just from South America. From Africa, Asia, the Middle East (…) they come from prisons and mental institutions,” including terrorists, Trump said, comparing them to the anthropophageum Hannibal Lecter, a character of “The Silence of the Innocent” (“The Silence of the Lambs” in Spain).
“Come on, but come legal,” he said, and said that irregular migration is harming those who have come in complying with the law.
He held back to Democrat Joe Biden’s government for doing nothing to stop the “invasion,” and reiterated that “the Republican platform promises to launch the largest deportation operation in the history of the country.”
Frade
He again made his false claim that Democrats cheated on in their defeat to Biden in the 2020 election.
Despite being embroiled in scandals, a political process for his attempt to overturn the 2020 election and 34 felony convictions in May in a criminal trial in New York, Trump’s popularity continues to grow in the polls.
Now, with Republicans aligned, he is optimistic about an eventual and surprising return to power. In an attempt to counter accusations that he is presented as an authoritarian leader, Trump insisted that he is “the one who saves democracy” and referred to his criminal investigations as a “witch hunt.”
He also promised to expand oil extraction, under the motto “drill, baby, drill” (drill, baby, drilling) and end Biden’s huge spending on combating climate change, calling it a “scam.”
Trump’s popularity bathroom contrasted with the crisis engrowing 81-year-old Biden, who on Thursday night appeared to be close to being forced by his own party to withdraw and make way for Vice President Kamala Harris or another candidate.
Jason Miller, Trump’s senior adviser, told AFP that “nothing fundamentally changes” for Trump if Biden retires.
Family party
Trump’s family was present and his son Eric encouraged the crowd to the cry of “fight, fight, fight,” the words Trump uttered after surviving the attack on his life, with his face bloodied and his fist up.
Trump’s wife, Melania, almost absent throughout the campaign, came in a round of applause but did not speak.
This week Trump named right-wing senator J.D. Vance, from Ohio, as his formula partner.
The 39-year-old author of “Hillbilly Elegy,” a best-selling memoir book on how to grow in poverty in the American working class, is a former Trump op-ed who has become one of his most staunch supporters.
Vance is also a critic of migration and a fierce representative of the far-right MAGA (Make America Great Again, Make America Great Again).
Trump is due to participate Saturday in a meeting of his party in the state of Michigan.
This article has been translated after first appearing in Diario El Mundo