By
The Associated Press
and
NBC News
Former Republican President Donald Trump accused the president, Democrat Joe Biden, on Tuesday of unleashing a "bloodbath" on the border with Mexico, thus intensifying his incendiary rhetoric against migrants within his campaign to return to the White House in the United States. November elections.
In his speech at a rally in Michigan, Trump spoke of the death of Ruby Garcia, a 25-year-old girl (the former president incorrectly said she was 17) whose body was found on the side of a Grand Rapids freeway. Police said she was romantically involved with a migrant, Brandon Ortiz-Vite, who was arrested for the crime. The man confessed that he shot her several times during a fight, abandoned her body and fled by car.
[Conservative rhetoric triggers fear that immigrants who arrived in the US legally will commit crimes]
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) indicated that Ortiz-Vite is a citizen of Mexico and had previously been deported after an arrest for drunk driving. According to ICE, he was a Dreamer whose status expired in 2019.
Trump assured that he had spoken with some of his relatives. However, García's sister, Mavi, told local station Fox17 that she had not done it. "No, he didn't talk to us," Fox17 said she told him in a text message, declining to comment.
"He didn't talk to any of us," he explained in an interview with NBC News affiliate WOOD-TV. "So it's shocking to see that she said that she had spoken to us, misinforming people on live television."
NBC News asked the Trump campaign if it had spoken to anyone in the family, but it declined to respond. García, in any case, said that neither Trump nor anyone from his campaign had spoken with the family, making clear his criticism of the former president for politicizing the death of his sister. "It's always about illegal immigrants," he said, "no one really talks about Americans committing horrible crimes."
Trump has accused migrants of "poisoning the blood of the country" and has promised to launch the largest deportation operation in the country's history if he wins a second term. On Tuesday he said Biden is allowing a "bloodbath" that is "destroying the country." He referred to people who are in the United States illegally and suspected of committing crimes as "animals," using dehumanizing language that extremism analysts have warned increases the risk of violence.
“With corrupt Joe Biden, all states are now border states. Every city is now a frontier because Joe Biden has brought the carnage, chaos and carnage from around the world and poured it directly into our backyards,” Trump said in Grand Rapids, where he was flanked by uniformed law enforcement officers. .
Although violent crime has decreased in the country, Trump and other Republicans have attacked Biden by focusing on high-profile crimes allegedly committed by immigrants who are in the United States illegally. Polls suggest Trump has an advantage over Biden on this issue, as many voters say they are concerned about the record of illegal crossings.
Trump speaks at his campaign event in Grand Rapids.Paul Sancya / AP
Trump continued his insistence at a rally in Green Bay, Wisconsin, on Tuesday, accusing other countries of "pumping migrants across our open border" and "sending [to the United States] prisoners, murderers, drug traffickers, mentally ill , terrorists," although there is no evidence that any country is making that kind of coordinated effort.
The former president also stated that migrants cost the country billions of dollars in public benefits and can cause Social Security and Medicare to "collapse," even though economic studies indicate that it is precisely thanks to migrants that the economy of the country remains buoyant.
"If you want to help Joe Biden throw grandma off the cliff to fund government benefits to illegals, then vote for corrupt Joe Biden," Trump said.
Biden's campaign team said Trump is the one threatening the government's social programs: "He is trying to cover up his unpopular record with erratic lies and desperate denials," said Brianna Johnson, communications director for the president's campaign in Wisconsin.
The White House emphasized the positive impact of migration on the economy, arguing that recent increases in arrivals were helping to boost employment and sustained growth as the Federal Reserve raised rates to tame inflation.
"We know that immigrants strengthen our country and they also strengthen our economy," White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said at Tuesday's briefing, noting that immigrants did the "critical work" on the bridge. Francis Scott Key of Baltimore when he collapsed.
Trump also again mentioned the murder of Laken Riley, a nursing student in Georgia. A Venezuelan migrant who authorities say entered the United States illegally has been charged. The young woman's family attended Trump's rally in that state last month and met with him backstage.
Trump referred to the suspect as an “illegal foreign animal.” “Democrats say, 'Please don't call them animals. They are humans.' I say, 'No, they're not humans, they're animals,'” he added.
FBI statistics show that violent crime fell again in the US last year, representing a downward trend following the spike during the pandemic.
[Georgia passes a bill that toughens immigration policies after the murder of university student Laken Riley]
In Michigan, violent crime hit a three-year low in 2022, according to the latest data available. Crime in Michigan's largest city, Detroit, has also declined, with homicides at the lowest number since 1966.
Michigan and Wisconsin are considered key states heading into the November general election. Trump won both in 2016, tearing down Democrats' so-called blue wall, but he lost them to Biden in 2020. His campaign hopes to win them back with a focus on blue-collar and union workers.
Biden's campaign has sought to counter Trump's attacks, attacking him for his role in gutting a bipartisan border deal that would have added more than 1,500 new law enforcement officers, in addition to other restrictions.
“There was a solution on the table. It was the former president who encouraged Republicans to walk away,” said Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat. “I have no tolerance for political points when it continues to endanger our economy and, to some extent, our people,” she said.