Harris hits out at Trump’s promise of mass deportations
19 September 2024, 01:44
Vice President Kamala Harris criticised her presidential rival as Donald Trump held a rally in Long Island.
Vice President Kamala Harris has criticised Donald Trump’s promise to deport millions of people who are in the United States illegally
The Democratic presidential nominee questioned whether her Republican rival would rely on massive raids and detention camps to carry out the plan.
She told the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute’s annual leadership conference on Wednesday that the nation can find both a pathway to citizenship for those who want to come and at the same time secure the border.
“We can do both, and we must do both,” she said.
Mr Trump held a rally in Uniondale on New York’s Long Island as both candidates took a break from campaigning in the states that are likely to decide the November 5 election.
He ripped into Democratic leadership in New York City and state, blaming them for homeless people living in what he called “horrible, disgusting, dangerous, filthy encampments” and even the conditions on the New York City subway, which he called “squalid and unsafe” and promised to renovate.
“We’re just destroying the fabric of life in our country. And we’re not going to take it any longer. And you got to get rid of these people. Give me a shot,” he said.
Before heading out to the suburbs, the former president stopped at a Bitcoin cafe in New York City. He has embraced cryptocurrency and on Monday helped launch his family’s new cryptocurrency venture.
Ms Harris harked back to the Trump administration’s immigration policies as she bid for Hispanic support.
“While we fight to move our nation forward to a brighter future, Donald Trump and his extremist allies will keep trying to pull us backward,” she said.
“We all remember what they did to tear families apart, and now they have pledged to carry out the largest deportation, a mass deportation, in American history.
“Imagine what that would look like and what that would be? How’s that going to happen? Massive raids? Massive detention camps? What are they talking about?”
Mr Trump has leaned into immigration as a top campaign issue and promised to carry out “the largest deportation operation in the history of our country” but has offered no details on how such an operation would work.
“Look at what’s happening,” he told his crowd in New York. “Businesses that are fleeing, money draining out of your state and hundreds of thousands of illegal migrants sucking your public resources dry.”
The Teamsters union has declined to endorse either candidate, saying neither had sufficient support from its 1.3 million members.
The vice president met with a panel of Teamsters on Tuesday, having long courted organised labour and made support for the middle class her central policy goal.
Mr Trump met earlier in the year with a panel of Teamsters and its president, Sean O’Brien, spoke at his invitation at the Republican National Convention.
The former president said he plans in the next two weeks to visit Springfield, Ohio, the city at the centre of false accusations from him and his running mate JD Vance that members of the city’s Haitian community are abducting and eating cats and dogs.
He also said he plans to visit Aurora, Colorado, where he says a Venezuelan street gang with a small presence in the city has taken over a rundown apartment complex. Aurora police say that is not the case.
