(Phoenix) Donald Trump reiterated his anti-immigration diatribes on Thursday during his first campaign event since his criminal conviction, condemning his rival Joe Biden’s “open border policy” despite the president’s recent shift to the right of the Democratic Party.
Joe Biden announced on Tuesday that he would bar asylum seekers from accessing the U.S. illegally when the number of immigrants entering the U.S. illegally exceeds 2,500 per day for a week.
“On my first day in office, I will rescind the slanderous executive order of “Joe the Crook”, Donald Trump chanted before a cheering crowd that believed the speech was “pro-invasion” and “pro-child abduction”. Or even “pro-drug traffickers”.
Photo by Ash Ponders, The New York Times
Donald Trump spoke at a partisan rally in Phoenix, Arizona on Thursday.
“Also, I will end all the open border policies of the Biden administration,” he said during a campaign event in Arizona, a key state in the southwest bordering Mexico, where large numbers of migrants from various countries pass through.
Immigration has become a central theme of the campaign as the presidential election approaches, pitting Joe Biden and Donald Trump against each other, with Republicans accusing the Democratic president of being responsible for an “invasion” at the border.
The Republican nominee has promised retaliatory measures, such as imposing tariffs on countries that don’t stop the flow of immigrants to the United States.
“We have great economic power,” declared Donald Trump. “If China or another country behaves badly, what we call tariffs, they can be very harmful.”
It was the first campaign event for the former president since he was convicted in late May of allegedly falsifying his payments to an elderly movie actress.
Joe Biden’s speech on Tuesday also allows for deportations to Mexico, with some rare exceptions. Further, the proposed restrictions will remain in place until the number of illegal entries falls below 1,500 per day.
The immigration issue is one of the biggest electoral threats to the outgoing president, according to polls.
In 2020, Joe Biden won Arizona by 10,000 votes.
