Appealing to undecided Latino voters with bold-faced racism at a Univision town hall was a brazen strategy for Donald Trump. Surprisingly, it didn’t seem to pay off.
The Republican presidential nominee’s favorability among Latino voters has been in flux, but a New York Times /Siena College poll published earlier this week found that Vice President Kamala Harris led the nationwide demographic by a 12-point margin, while Trump attracted just 40 percent of the coveted vote. But groups of Latinos in key swing states, such as Nevada, have become less shy in recent months about showing their support for the former president, particularly over the economy.
So when it came time to answer a question from Jorge Velazquez, a 64-year-old Mexican immigrant farmer, about his mass deportation plan and the thousands of arduous jobs it would leave empty in the agricultural industry, Trump had an opening to seal the deal. Instead, he dropped the bag.
“The problem we have is, we had people coming in under my administration, and they were coming in legally, they were coming in through a system we had which was great because I’m the best thing that ever happened to farmers, you know that. I was great,” Trump said .
“They’ve released hundreds of thousands of people that are murderers, drug dealers, terrorists—they’re coming in totally, nobody knows who they are, where they come from,” Trump continued as audience members shifted in their seats.
“The other thing I can say is that a lot of the jobs that you have and that other people have are being taken by these people that are coming in,” Trump continued, misunderstanding Velazquez’s question, which directly tasked Trump to answer how much America would pay for the “price of food” if immigrant labor was unavailable.
“The African American population and the Hispanic population in particular are losing jobs now because millions of people are coming in,” Trump said. “So, they’re coming in but they’re also coming in largely and tremendous numbers, coming in, out of mental institutions—they’re emptying out mental institutions—they’re emptying out insane asylums, that’s a step above a mental institution.… They’re emptying out jails.”
In another sprawling and disturbing answer, Trump reinforced the baseless MAGA conspiracy that Haitian immigrants (who have legal temporary protected status) were eating pets in Springfield, Ohio, lamenting that the sudden influx was preventing locals from accessing their basic needs.
“If you were a person that lived there, if you lived in Springfield, Ohio, and all of a sudden you couldn’t get into a hospital, you couldn’t get your children into a school, you wouldn’t be able to buy groceries. You could no longer pay the rent because the government’s paying rent, any of that. If any of that happened, it would be a disaster for you and you wouldn’t be happy. We want to make our people safe and secure, and we want to make them happy,” Trump said .
But the Haitian immigrants—who were attracted to the city due to its low cost of living and readily available work opportunities—are hardly why so many schools and government buildings in Springfield have shut down in recent weeks.
Instead, that fault lies with Trump and Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance, who have drawn so much attention to the tiny city with their conspiracy that Springfield has endured at least 33 bomb threats , forcing it to evacuate and temporarily shutter several of its schools, colleges, festivals, and a significant portion of its government facilities.
Multiple city officials, Ohio Governor Mike DeWine, and even JD Vance himself have stated in no uncertain terms that the Haitian immigrant conspiracy is false.
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