Trump
Rally in Aurora, Colo., Is Marked by Nativist Attacks
The former
president continued to make claims about the city that have been disputed by
local officials, including its Republican mayor.
Michael
GoldJonathan Weisman
By Michael
Gold and Jonathan Weisman
Michael Gold
reported from Aurora, Colo.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/11/us/politics/trump-aurora-nativist.html
Oct. 11,
2024
Updated 8:46
p.m. ET
Former
President Donald J. Trump escalated the nativist, anti-immigration rhetoric
that has animated his political career with a speech Friday in Aurora, Colo.,
where he repeated false and grossly exaggerated claims about undocumented
immigrants that local Republican officials have refuted.
For weeks,
Aurora has been fending off false rumors about the city. And its conservative
Republican mayor, Mike Coffman, said in a statement on Friday that he hoped to
show Mr. Trump that Aurora was “a considerably safe city.”
But Mr.
Trump has made debunked claims about Aurora, a Denver suburb, such a central
part of his stump speech that he took a campaign detour to Colorado, which has
not voted for a Republican in a presidential election since 2004, to make the
case in person at a rally at the Gaylord Rockies Resort & Convention
Center.
And during a
meandering 80-minute speech Mr. Trump repeated claims, which have been debunked
by local officials, that Aurora had been “invaded and conquered,” described the
United States as an “occupied state,” called for the death penalty “for any
migrant that kills an American citizen” and revived a promise to use the Alien
Enemies Act of 1798 to deport suspected members of drug cartels and criminal
gangs without due process.
That law
allows for the summary deportation of people from nations with which the United
States is at war, that have invaded the United States or that have engaged in
“predatory incursions.” It was far from clear whether the law could be used in
the way that Mr. Trump was proposing.
The false
tale that Aurora, Colorado’s third-largest city, was occupied by armed
Venezuelans stemmed from a dispute over housing conditions.
An
out-of-state landlord, CBZ Management, was being pressed by the City of Aurora
over the deplorable conditions in three of its apartment complexes. The
landlord told the city in July that its property managers were unable to make
the repairs that tenants and city officials were demanding because armed
leaders of Tren de Aragua had taken over the complexes and violently expelled
the managers. The claim was amplified by news reports and politicians, and took
on a life of its own, especially after Mr. Trump began making it a regular part
of his stump speech — even after city officials said the claims had been
overstated and were not true.
The city put
out a statement on Friday pre-emptively fact-checking the former president
ahead of his rally.
“A gang has
not ‘taken over’ the city,” it said. “The overstated claims fueled by social
media and through select news organizations are simply not true. It is tragic
that select individuals and entities have mischaracterized our city based on
some specific incidents.”
Major
crimes, it continued, are down more than 17 percent in Aurora. And “the city is
actively deploying every legal tool to ensure CBZ Management is accountable for
its properties and meets its responsibilities.”
After the
rally, Mr. Coffman, the mayor, said that he was “disappointed that the former
president did not get to experience more of our city for himself” and that “the
reality is that the concerns about Venezuelan gang activity in our city — and
our state — have been grossly exaggerated and have unfairly hurt the city’s
identity and sense of safety.”
“The city
and state have not been ‘taken over’ or ‘invaded’ or ‘occupied’ by migrant
gangs,” he said. “The incidents that have occurred in Aurora, a city of 400,000
people, have been limited to a handful of specific apartment complexes, and our
dedicated police officers have acted on those concerns and will continue to do
so.”
Mr. Trump’s
visit to Aurora comes as he has ramped up his harsh language on immigration and
continues to claim falsely that undocumented immigrants are fueling a “migrant
crime” wave. Available national crime statistics do not support that assertion.
But Mr. Trump relies on anecdotal evidence to make his case.
Mr. Trump’s
nativist message was echoed by other speakers at the rally, including
Representative Lauren Boebert, Republican of Colorado. Shortly before Mr.
Trump’s remarks, Stephen Miller, his top immigration adviser, made
anti-immigrant language central to his appeals to the crowd to vote.
“You have
the right to want a country that is of, by and for Americans and only
Americans,” Mr. Miller said.
His false
assertions extended to another city, Springfield, Ohio, where he continued to
insist falsely that Haitian migrants who are in the country legally were
“really illegal,” as he persisted in stretching the bounds of what he described
as unlawful entry into the country.
Many of the
Haitian migrants in Springfield have Temporary Protected Status, which gives
people from a country in crisis — typically after a natural disaster or
political upheaval — the opportunity to remain in the United States legally,
regardless of how they entered the country. (In the presidential debate last
month, Mr. Trump falsely claimed that the migrants there were eating household
pets.)
At the
rally, Mr. Trump continued to use dehumanizing rhetoric, referring to violent
immigrants as “animals,” “barbaric thugs” and “sadistic monsters.” At one
point, he falsely claimed that Ms. Harris had “infested” buildings in Aurora
with gang members.
Though
immigration dominated Mr. Trump’s speech, he digressed to attack the news
media, demean Ms. Harris and stray to other topics. At one point, he seemed to
mix up his namesake company with his presidency. “On Day 1 of the Trump
Organization — the Trump Organization, when I founded it, it was nice, but now
it’s great,” he said. “But I want to get back to the Trump administration,
because the Trump administration is going to do things.”
Mr. Trump
during his speech acknowledged that his trip to reliably blue Colorado was
meant to draw attention to his message on immigration.
The Aurora
rally was one of several stops in blue states he will make as the election
closes, in a period when campaigns would typically be more focused on
battleground states. On Saturday, he will hold a rally in Coachella, Calif.,
and he will hold a rally in Manhattan at Madison Square Garden later this
month.
Michael C.
Bender and Jazmine Ulloa contributed reporting.
Michael Gold
is a political correspondent for The Times covering the campaigns of Donald J.
Trump and other candidates in the 2024 presidential elections. More about
Michael Gold
Jonathan
Weisman is a politics writer, covering campaigns with an emphasis on economic
and labor policy. He is based in Chicago. More about Jonathan Weisman
Sem comentários:
Enviar um comentário