Donald Trump steps up his dark anti-immigrant rhetoric, Harris

The former president accused Harris and Democratic President Joe Biden of allowing undocumented immigrants into the U.S. and accused some migrants of wanting to “rape, pillage, steal, plunder and kill the people of the United States of America.”

At one point, Trump admitted, “That’s a dark speech.”

Trump’s speech took place in the small Wisconsin town of Prairie du Chien, where a Venezuelan man was illegally arrested in the United States in September for allegedly sexually assaulting a woman and assaulting her daughter.

According to the administration, about 7 million migrants were arrested crossing the U.S.-Mexico border illegally during Biden’s term, a record-breaking number that has fueled criticism of Harris and Biden from Trump and other Republicans.

During her visit to the border on Friday, Harris outlined her plans to fix “our broken immigration system” while accusing Trump of “stoking the fires of fear and division” over the impact of immigrants on American life.

Harris also called for stricter asylum restrictions and vowed to make preventing the importation of fentanyl into the U.S. a “top priority.”

Trump also repeated his false claim that his 2020 election loss to Biden was fraudulent. If re-elected and “if allowed,” Trump said he would prosecute those he blames for his loss.

Studies generally conclude that there is no evidence that immigrants commit crimes at higher rates than U.S.-born Americans, and critics say Trump’s rhetoric reinforces racist tropes.

Trump typically focuses on young women allegedly killed by Hispanic attackers to drive home that message, avoiding cases involving male victims.

Trump’s opponents accuse him of cynically exploiting grieving families to fuel his narrative that foreign-born, often Hispanic, arrivals are part of an invading army.

But some victims’ families welcomed Trump’s focus on the issue of violent crime and the death toll among teenagers caused by the opioid drug fentanyl, much of which enters the U.S. through the southern border.

Several parents who lost children to attacks by illegal immigrants in the United States or to fentanyl spoke out in support of Trump ahead of his comments on Saturday.