Donald Trump was met with chants of “build the wall” on Thursday evening as he rehashed his anti-immigrant rhetoric during a campaign rally in the Bronx.
Speaking in Crotona Park in the South Bronx – a Democratic stronghold with a large Hispanic and Black population – the former president baselessly sought to paint migrants from China, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and other nations as a threat to the United States.
In a particularly xenophobic moment, he baselessly claimed that migrants are “building an army” to attack the US from inside its borders.
“You look at these people… they are physically fit, they’re 19 to 25, almost everyone is a male, and they look like fighting age,” he told the crowd of supporters.
“I think they’re building an army. I think they want to get us from within. I think they’re building an army… they have something in mind.”
He also sought to connect record-level illegal migration to the economic hardship of Black and Hispanic voters, claiming, again without evidence, that migrants were taking jobs away from them.
“We are not going to let these people come in and take our city away from us and take our country away,” he said.
“African Americans are getting slaughtered. Hispanic Americans are getting slaughtered,” he claimed, blaming President Joe Biden’s economic agenda for hurting minority voters.
He went on to promise to conduct “the largest criminal deportation operation in our country’s history” if he’s re-elected in November – comments that were met with cheers and chants of “build the wall” and “send them back” from his crowd of supporters.
His comments mark the latest anti-immigrant rhetoric from the former president – rhetoric that has drawn comparisons to Adolf Hitler and other fascist leaders.
In recent months, he has referred to political opponents as “vermin” and called migrants “animals” who are “poisoning the blood” of the country.
Mr Trump’s associates are already said to be making plans to deport asylum seekers en masse during a potential second term.
Backers of the former president, including former administration officials, are prepping executive orders and policy memos to reduce the number of migrants crossing the US-Mexico border on day one of him potentially reclaiming the White House, several people involved told The Wall Street Journal.
A Trump spokesperson told The Independent earlier this month that Mr Trump will “implement brand new crackdowns that will send shockwaves to all the world’s criminal smugglers, and marshal every federal and state power necessary to institute the largest deportation operation in American history”.
Mr Trump’s intensified xenophobic attacks comes despite studies revealing that immigrants are not more likely to commit crimes, Reuters reported last month.
Thursday’s rally marked his first in New York in eight years – and his first ever in the Bronx – coming somewhat out of convenience as his criminal trial in Manhattan nears the end.
Mr Trump noted that he had been concerned about how he would be welcomed in the heavily Democratic area.
“I woke up, I said, ‘I wonder, will it be hostile or will it be friendly?’” he said. “It was beyond friendly. It was a love fest.”
After losing the state by large margins in 2016 and 2020, Mr Trump claimed he would win New York in the fall.
“New York was where you came to make it big. You want to make it big, you had to be in New York,” Mr Trump, who made Florida his official home state in 2019, told the crowd. “But sadly, this is now a city in decline.”
In 2020, Mr Biden won the Bronx by 68 points, which was actually an improvement for Mr Trump compared to 2016 when he lost the borough by 79 points.
Mr Trump is in a close race with Mr Biden ahead of the election in the fall, with the Trump campaign trying to attract enough Black and Hispanic voters to get him across the line in key states.
“Don’t assume it doesn’t matter just because you live in a blue city. You live in a blue city, but it’s going red very, very quickly,” Mr Trump claimed.
Mr Trump also spent considerable parts of the speech reminiscing about his decades in New York, including praising his father Fred Trump and home builder William Levitt.
Despite his claims of a “love fest”, more than 100 protesters demonstrated against his appearance outside the fenced-off rally area.
Closing arguments in Mr Trump’s criminal trial in New York will begin on Tuesday before the jury begins deliberations in the case.
Mr Trump is charged with falsifying business records to cover up a hush money payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election to silence her about an alleged affair they had in 2006. He has pleaded not guilty and denies the affair.
