At a town hall on Wednesday, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump doubled down on the assertion that immigrants are eating pets in Ohio — despite those claims being widely debunked.
At a town hall hosted by Spanish-language TV Univision, an undecided Mexican-born Latino Republican voter from Arizona, a battleground state, asked Trump in Spanish whether he truly believed that immigrants were eating pets.
“I was just saying what was reported… And eating other things too that they’re not supposed to be. All I do is report,” Trump replied during the event held in Miami, sharing no sources other than claiming it has been reported in “newspapers.”
“I was there, I’m going to be there and we’re going to take a look.”
In recent weeks, the former president has amplified the false claim that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, have been stealing pets from residents and capturing wildlife from local parks to kill and eat as food.
In September, when he squared off against Vice-President Kamala Harris for the presidential debate, he first pushed the narrative, claiming without evidence: “In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs. The people that came in, they’re eating the cats. They’re eating — they’re eating the pets of the people that live there,” he said at the time, his remarks instantly going viral and leading to bomb threats being issued against the city.
Pressed by the moderator, Trump said he saw people on television who said “their dog was eaten by the people that went there.”
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Local officials and statewide leaders in Ohio, including Republicans, have made it clear on numerous occasions that there is no credibility to such claims.
Trump, who has not yet travelled to Springfield, has previously said he would conduct mass deportations of Haitian immigrants from the Ohio city, even though the vast majority of them are in the U.S. legally.
But, on Wednesday, he dodged and dismissed questions about his plans concerning immigrants.
When one undecided voter asked who would do the job of harvesting America’s fruit if Trump followed through with his plan to oust, en masse, the undocumented workers who currently do the job, he sidestepped the question.
Instead, he accused newer immigrants to the country of stealing jobs from Hispanic and African Americans and described migrants across the U.S. border with Mexico as “hundreds of thousands of people that are murderers, drug dealers and terrorists.”
“We have to have people that are great people come into our country,” he said. “I want them in even more than you do.”
Trump has previously said that the Haitian migrants, despite being in the U.S. legally under Temporary Protected Status, are “illegal immigrants as far as I’m concerned,” saying he would revoke their status and deport them if he wins another term in November.
Trump has been attempting to make inroads with America’s Latino population and polls show he’s gaining ground in the diverse voting bloc, many who live in crucial swing states like Arizona and Nevada. However, polls show that Harris still has an advantage with Latino voters, who have typically backed Democrats in the past.
Harris led Trump by eight percentage points – 47 per cent to 39 per cent – among Hispanic voters in Reuters/Ipsos polling conducted between Sept. 11 and Oct. 7. Harris held her own Latino town hall last week in Nevada, a battleground state with a significant Hispanic population.
Now, the Trump campaign is hoping to win over more of the Hispanic vote, especially men, on the back of economic discontent.
Trump has previously used dehumanizing terminology to describe immigrants in the U.S. illegally, calling them “animals” when talking about alleged criminal acts, and saying they are “poisoning the blood of our country,” a phrase that has drawn criticism as xenophobic and echoing Nazi rhetoric.
Another town hall participant, a Florida-based Republican, said he wanted to give Trump a chance to “win back his vote” given his concerns over the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot and former Trump administration officials turning against the former president.
Thousands of Trump supporters rushed the Capitol in Washington, D.C., that day in a bid to stop formal certification of his election defeat, causing millions of dollars in damage. Four people died on the day of the attack, and one Capitol Police officer who fought against the rioters died the next day.
Trump gave a lengthy response in which he described Jan. 6 as a “day of love” and said former administration officials who had turned against him were angry about having been fired.
“I hope someday maybe we’ll get your vote,” Trump said as he wrapped up. “Sounds like maybe I won’t, but that’s OK too.”
— With files from Reuters
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