Fresh from his trip to the southern border earlier this week, former President Donald J. Trump baselessly claimed Saturday that President Biden had “smuggled” violent anti-American forces across the border.
At two rallies in North Carolina and Virginia, Mr. Trump — who has been charged with conspiracy to defraud the United States as part of the 91 felony counts he is currently facing in four separate criminal cases — claimed broadly and without evidence that Mr. Biden’s Border policy would amount to a “conspiracy to overthrow the United States of America.”
Mr. Trump has previously suggested, without evidence, that Democrats were encouraging migrants to cross the border illegally to register to vote. On Saturday, he told crowds in Greensboro, North Carolina, and Richmond, Virginia, that he believed Mr. Biden was “giving aid and comfort” to America’s foreign enemies.
He went on to frame this year’s election as a question: “Whether the foreign armies that Joe Biden has smuggled across our border will be allowed to stay or whether they will be told to get the hell out of here and go home.”
Mr. Trump has frequently blamed the surge of migrants at the border on Mr. Biden and Democrats, who he says are too lenient toward those crossing the border illegally. But there is no evidence to support the claim that Mr. Biden smuggled migrants across the border.
There is also no evidence that Democrats encouraged the flow of migrants at the border to illegally register them to vote, one of many claims Mr. Trump has made as he spread widespread and often-debunked claims of voter fraud the 2020 election.
Mr. Trump repeated these allegations of fraud at his rallies in North Carolina and Virginia, two states that will vote in the Republican primary on Tuesday, and that Mr. Trump hopes he can win in the general election if he is the Republican nominee.
He said Republicans needed to ensure a turnout so large in November that it would be “too large to be rigged,” reinforcing his assertion that Democrats could only win this year by cheating. And his campaign passed out signs reading “Too Big to Rig” among the crowds at both rallies.
But Mr. Trump also appeared to link his predictions about voter interference to the refugee crisis, accusing Mr. Biden and his allies of trying to “collapse the American system, overturn the will of actual American voters and create a new power base.” “Giving them control over generations.”
The border crisis has worsened during the Biden administration. Republicans accused Mr. Biden of being negligent on the issue, arguing that his promises to roll back Mr. Trump’s tough border policies led to the continued influx.
Democrats have pointed to a global increase in migration. And Mr. Biden has blamed Republicans for trying to block bipartisan efforts to address the problem, including a bill in Congress that would have significantly cracked down on border crossings. At Mr Trump’s urging, Republicans defeated the bill.
During his campaign, Mr. Trump has stepped up warnings about threats he portrays as damaging to traditional American values. The former president typically relies on the language of war to describe the border crisis, which he calls an invasion.
On Thursday, Mr. Trump visited Eagle Pass, Texas, where Gov. Greg Abbott has deployed the Texas National Guard to monitor the border. After a briefing on the state’s efforts, Mr. Trump said the migrants “look like warriors to me,” adding that “something is going on — it’s bad.”
During his speech on Saturday, Trump again painted the people crossing the border with a broad brush, saying they came from “mental hospitals and insane asylums” or were former prisoners sent across the border by leaders of other countries are countries.
And he again listed a series of crimes allegedly committed by migrants, stoking fear and portraying Democrats as ignoring crime and disorder. But border officials, including some who worked for Mr. Trump, said most migrants crossing the border are members of vulnerable families fleeing poverty and violence.
Mr. Trump plans an extreme expansion of his anti-immigration policies if he wins the election in 2025, including what he calls the “largest domestic deportation operation” in U.S. history.
A new Trump administration would build massive camps across the United States to hold undocumented immigrants. And Mr. Trump would reinstate a Covid-era policy that rejects asylum claims on the grounds that migrants carry diseases such as tuberculosis.
In Greensboro, Mr. Trump’s claims resonated with supporters, many of whom cited the border as their biggest concern.
“I think that’s absolutely true,” said Dave Johnson, 69, a retired tobacco factory worker from Graham, North Carolina. “The Biden administration doesn’t care about us.”
Charles Homans contributed reporting from Greensboro, North Carolina
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2024-03-03 02:32:22
www.nytimes.com
