By Former President Donald J. Trump said he wants to be known as the “border president,” will clean up illegal immigration and criticized Vice President Kamala Harris’ track record on crime in California at a press conference on Sept. 13 at the Trump National Golf Club in Rancho Palos Verdes.
When he spoke of her work on immigration, Trump called Harris a “radical left, Marxist, communist fascist.”
Trump said “illegal aliens” were being flown into the United States and Harris was allowing them to stampede across the border. He called the immigrants lacking permanent legal status murderers and terrorists.
“We have the worst border in the history of the world. There’s never been a border like this. And I want to be the ‘border president’ and I hope you call me the ‘border president,’” Trump said.
Trump specified that Harris had settled 200,000 Haitian immigrants in the United States. According to Trump, immigrants lacking permanent legal status are coming into the country from, “prisons, jails [and] mental institutions.”
In January 2023, Factcheck.org said the Department of Homeland Security created a program modeled to provide Venezuelans and Ukrainians a safe and lawful way into the United States.
A press release issued by the DHS said this new program was created to include Cubans, Haitians and Nicaraguans into this lawful immigration process, in addition to the process already set for Venezuelans.
Trump said Harris will create a refugee camp country, adding that the U.S. already is one. He said he believed 21 million immigrants lacking permanent legal status had crossed into the country.
Former president Donald Trump to a crowded media section on his golf course at Rancho Palos Verdes. The former president was meant to speak at 9 a.m. but delays pushed it back to around 10 a.m. Photo credit: Samuel Chacko.
A July report by Pew Research cataloged that the immigrant population grew to 11 million according to the most recent data from American Community Survey in 2022. Since then the numbers have likely increased.
The United States Customs and Border Protection reported that in December 2023 the Border Patrol had more than 249,000 encounters with Title 8 apprehensions. The same data showed Border Patrol July encounters were over 56,000.
According to Title 8, part 4, “On a warrant issued by the Attorney General, an immigrant lacking permanent legal status may be arrested and detained pending a decision on whether the alien is to be removed from the United States.”
Multiple Trump supporters showed up to the press conference to show their support for the former president. Photo credit: Samuel Chacko.
Trump also spoke about new data regarding an increase in crime. In a press release on Sept. 12, the Department of Justice’s Office of Justice Programs released information that said violent victimization, which include rape, sexual assault and aggravated assault, among others, had not had a significant change from numbers in 2019. Kevin M. Scott, Bureau of Justice Statistics acting director, said the numbers for 2023 were higher than those from 2020 and 2021.
According to Trump, the information that was released didn’t include large cities like Los Angeles and Chicago. He said these cities are the worst in crime. The Los Angeles Police Department released the 2023 end of year data on crime in January.
The data showed a decrease in citywide violent crime by 3.2% from 2022. The report also found the following:
- 26% decrease in gang related homicides in 2022, and 33% decrease in gang related homicides in 2021.
- 36% decrease in homeless related homicides in 2023 from 2022.
- 3.5% increase in citywide property crimes in 2023.
Trump also reiterated claims that the Biden administration was the subject of a coup by Harris.
Editor’s note: This article was updated at 4:17 p.m. on Saturday, September 14 to correct a date typo.
