One of former President Donald Trump’s top campaign promises heading into 2024 is immigration reform. Trump highlights the border crisis as a top issue facing the U.S., a sentiment shared with the majority of American voters.
According to polls released this month from CBS News and the Wall Street Journal, “immigration & the border” is the second most important issue for voters behind the economy.
Trump highlights his immigration policies at almost every rally on his campaign trail, saying it will lead to the largest reform the U.S. has ever seen. Trump has said he will conduct mass deportations of immigrants who crossed the border illegally. The former president also plans, if he wins the 2024 presidential election, to bring in the National Guard and troops from overseas to the border to stop the influx of migrants crossing illegally into the country.
Trump’s remarks at a New Hampshire rally on Saturday, Dec. 16 have largely overshadowed policy in his latest controversy.
They’re poisoning the blood of our country. They’ve poisoned mental institutions, prisons all over the world — not just South America or the three or four countries we think about. But they’re coming from all over the world from Africa, Asia. They’re pouring into our country. Nobody is even looking at them. They just come in.
Former President Donald Trump
“When they let 15-16 million people into our country, when they do that, we’ve got a lot of work to do,” Trump said on the New Hampshire stage. “They’re poisoning the blood of our country. They’ve poisoned mental institutions, prisons all over the world — not just South America or the three or four countries we think about. But they’re coming from all over the world from Africa, Asia. They’re pouring into our country. Nobody is even looking at them. They just come in.”
Trump has been criticized for his “poisoning the blood of our country” remarks because Adolf Hitler’s manifesto called the mixing of races “blood poisoning.”
Both Democrats and some Republicans have publicly condemned the former president’s choice of words. Trump’s rhetoric is something Republicans are getting used to answering for, largely downplaying the comments of the party’s frontrunner.
Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, S.C., was pressed on Trump’s remarks on NBC’s Meet the Press.
“To the Biden administration, you’re talking about Donald Trump’s language as you sat on the sidelines and allowed the country to be invaded,” Graham said. “You know, we’re talking about language. I could care less what language people use as long as we get it right. If you’re talking about the language Trump uses rather than trying to fix it, that’s a losing strategy for the Biden administration.”
Graham argued the country should focus on the difference in policy. Following Trump’s Dec. 16 remarks, major news outlets have described Trump’s immigration-related rhetoric as “anti-immigrant” or “anti-immigration“.
Trump seemed to attempt to clarify the remarks on Truth Social after his speech, standing by being against illegal immigration.
Trump’s words are known to trigger controversy. Trump recently said he would be “dictator for a day.” But his rhetoric doesn’t seem to be hurting him in the polls. Trump’s lead in the primary is unwavering. No presidential candidate has been this far ahead in national polls and gone on to lose the primary.
