By Tim Reid
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Donald Trump on Saturday deployed some of his harshest rhetoric against immigrants who crossed the border illegally and committed crimes, especially against young women, while also escalating his personal insults against Kamala Harris.
In the battleground state of Wisconsin, Trump called Democratic Vice President Harris, who on Friday visited the U.S.-Mexico border for the first time in her 2024 presidential campaign, “mentally disabled” and “mentally disabled.”
The Republican presidential candidate was flanked by signs of immigrants who are in the United States illegally and have been arrested for murder and other violent crimes, and banners reading “End Immigration Crimes” and “Deport Illegals Now.”
His speech was unusually dedicated almost entirely to undocumented immigrants. He called those who had committed violent crimes “monsters,” “cold killers,” and “vile animals.”
Trump is locked in a tight race with Harris ahead of the Nov. 5 election. According to opinion polls, immigration and the southern border are one of the main issues for voters.
Harris spokeswoman Sarafina Chitika said after Trump’s speech: “He has nothing ‘inspiring’ to offer the American people, only darkness.”
The former president blamed Harris and Democratic President Joe Biden for allowing undocumented immigrants into the United States, accusing some immigrants of wanting to “rape, loot, rob, plunder and kill the people of the United States of America.”
At one point Trump admitted: “This is a dark speech.”
Trump’s speech was in the small town of Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin, where a Venezuelan who was in the United States illegally was arrested in September for allegedly sexually assaulting a woman and attacking her daughter.
Some 7 million migrants have been arrested illegally crossing the U.S.-Mexico border during the Biden administration, according to government data, a record number that has fueled criticism of Harris and Biden from Trump and his Republican colleagues.
Visiting the border on Friday, Harris outlined her plans to fix “our broken immigration system” while accusing Trump of “fanning the flames of fear and division” over the impact of immigrants on American life.
Harris also called for tighter asylum restrictions and vowed to make stopping fentanyl from entering the United States a “top priority.”
Trump also reiterated his false claim that his 2020 election loss to Biden was fraudulent. If re-elected, and “if allowed,” Trump said he would prosecute the people he blames for his loss at the time.
Studies generally find there is no evidence that immigrants commit crimes at a higher rate than native-born Americans, and critics say Trump’s rhetoric reinforces racist tropes.
Trump typically focuses on young women allegedly killed by Hispanic assailants to convey that message, avoiding cases involving male victims.
Trump’s opponents accuse him of cynically exploiting grieving families to feed his narrative that foreign-born newcomers, often Hispanic, are part of an invading army.
But some of the victims’ families have welcomed Trump’s focus on the issue of violent crime and the number of teenage deaths caused by the opioid fentanyl, much of which crosses into the United States at the southern border.
Several parents who had lost their children to attacks by illegal immigrants in the United States or to fentanyl spoke in his support before Trump’s remarks on Saturday.