At a press conference in Doral, Florida, the Kamala Harris campaign spotlighted testimonies from migrant children separated from their families under the Trump administration's 2018 "zero tolerance" immigration policy, when nearly 4,000 children were taken from their parents after crossing the border without prior authorization.
The event, held just before Trump's town hall with Latino voters in Miami aired on Wednesday, featured three Central American children who experienced forceful separation after crossing the U.S. southern border.
Rep. Veronica Escobar (D-Texas), who cohosted the event with Harris spokesperson Kevin Muñoz, also took the opportunity to highlight Trump's track record on immigration and warn about what his new presidency could look like for immigrants, as The Hill reports:
"What Donald Trump did was take a broken system and obliterate it. He uses cruelty as American public policy. He dehumanizes immigrants. He calls immigrants by the most vile insults, the most offensive names, using deeply racist, ugly attacks, not once will you hear Donald Trump talking about how we should reform our outdated immigration laws."
Among the children in attendance was Billy, a 16-year-old Guatemalan, who recounted being separated from his father for about 40 days in 2018 when he was just nine years old. He described being placed in foster care in New York, the fear of not knowing if he would ever see his parents again and the lingering trauma of going through something similar if Trump were to be elected once again:
"I go to therapists, but I still have the fear of Trump being reelected, and that same thing happening to me or other kids ever again. Kamala Harris helped us be together again, and she helped us be a family again. And I don't want this to happen to any more kids. I was separated, and a lot more kids were separated, too."
Adriana, now 13, also shared her experience of being detained in a cold holding room, known as "la hielera" (icebox), before being separated from her mother, describing the anxiety and confusion she felt, believing they might never be reunited. Rounding out the attendees, brothers Christian and Hamilton also spoke about their time in foster care, highlighting the cultural disconnection and emotional toll of the separation.
Later on in the day, Trump's town hall presentation, hosted by Univision to engage with Latino voters, provided a glimpse of what the former president envisions i he were to be reelected to the presidency.
Trump focused a large portion of his address on the economy, claiming that Latinos were better off during his presidency. However, when pressed about immigration, particularly the impact of his plans to deport millions of undocumented workers, he shifted the conversation toward crimes committed by undocumented migrants.
As has been common in his rallies, Trump also took the opportunity to criticize the Biden administration's immigration policies, accusing it of allowing "hundreds of thousands of murderers, drug dealers, and terrorists." He also doubled down on his unfounded claims that Haitian immigrants are eating pets, adding that he believes they're "eating other things too, that they're not supposed to be."
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