Republican candidate Donald Trump promised yesterday to hire 10,000 border guards if he is elected president of the United States, as he intensifies his attacks on Kamala Harris on immigration issues. At a campaign rally in Arizona, the former president and presidential candidate also said he would ask Congress to fund a 10% pay raise for Border Patrol agents.
Flanked by Border Patrol unions, who voiced their support for Trump ahead of the November 5 election, the former president said he would ensure the conditions were in place to “hire and retain the border guards we need.”
Immigration at the center of the electoral campaign
Illegal immigration is one of the burning issues of the election campaign and, according to polls, Trump is seen by the majority of voters as the best person to deal with it.
Earlier this year, Trump opposed a bipartisan border security bill that would have provided funding to hire 1,500 border guards and customs officers, as well as 1,600 more workers at agencies that process asylum cases. Currently, there are only 20,000 border guards in the US.
US Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic candidate in the November 5 elections, as well as President Joe Biden, criticized Trump for his role in preventing Republicans from passing the bill, accusing him of sabotaging it. to obtain political gains.
According to government data, around 7 million illegal immigrants were detained trying to cross the US-Mexico border during Biden’s tenure in the White House.
Harris promised that her platform includes measures to fix the troubled immigration system, accusing Trump of fueling the “fire of fear and division” with his claims about the impact of immigrants on ordinary Americans. He also advocated for tighter asylum restrictions and promised to make combating the illegal entry of fentanyl (a synthetic opioid that has caused thousands of deaths) into the country a “top priority.”
Trump is stepping up his anti-immigrant rhetoric
On Friday, Trump called for the death penalty for “any illegal immigrant” who kills an American citizen. In recent weeks, he has intensified his anti-immigrant rhetoric. Last month, referring to immigrants who commit violent crimes in the US, he referred to them as “monsters”, “cold-blooded killers” and “beasts”. Studies have shown there is no evidence to support the claim that undocumented immigrants commit crimes at a higher rate than U.S. residents, and Trump’s critics say the Republican mogul’s rhetoric fuels xenophobia.