Donald Trump warns deporting migrants will be a ‘bloody story’

Former President Donald Trump stepped up his rhetoric on immigration on Saturday, warning that sending migrants back from the United States would be a “bloody story” if he is re-elected in November.

Trump made the comments at a campaign rally in Mosinee, Wisconsin, and they align with the Republican National Committee’s recently released 2024 platform, which calls for aggressive immigration enforcement and mass deportations.

“And you know, getting them out is going to be a bloody mess,” Trump told supporters on Saturday, referring to plans for a large-scale removal of illegal immigrants. “(They) should never have been allowed to come into our country. Nobody checked on them.”

A video of the former president’s remarks was posted on X, formerly Twitter, by @KamalaHQ. The video currently has over 260,000 views.

Newsweek contacted Trump’s campaign via email for comment on Saturday.

On July 15, the Republican National Committee released and adopted new immigration policy priorities at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.

The document states: “Republicans are advancing an aggressive plan to end open-border policies that have opened the floodgates to a flood of illegal immigrants, deadly drugs and migrant crime.”

Key policy points of the platform included:

• “Close the border and stop the invasion of migrants”
• “Carry out the largest deportation operation in American history”
• “Stop the migrant crime epidemic, destroy the foreign drug cartels, crush gang violence and lock up violent criminals”

The platform promises to “restore every Trump administration border policy” and complete the border wall that Trump began during his previous term. It also calls for strengthening U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), toughening penalties for illegal entry and visa overstays, and reinstituting Trump’s “Remain in Mexico” policy.

The 2024 platform uses more direct language compared to the 2016/2020 version. Conciliatory statements about the contributions of immigrants to the country are absent.

This hardline stance is further reinforced by Trump’s pick for vice president, Senator JD Vance of Ohio, who has backed calls for mass deportations of illegal immigrants despite unclear implementation plans.

At the Republican Party convention in Wisconsin, Vance echoed Trump’s rhetoric: “We need to deport people, we need to deport people who have broken our laws and come here. I think we start with the violent criminals.”

Vance’s campaign was even more explicit, with a fundraising message declaring, “We must deport everyone who entered our country illegally.” This matches Trump’s claim that between 15 and 20 million people could be deported under his plans, though official estimates put the number of undocumented migrants in the U.S. at around 11 million.

In his convention speech, Vance linked immigration to housing problems, stating, “Then the Democrats flooded this country with millions of illegal aliens. So citizens had to compete with people who shouldn’t be here at all for precious housing.” However, data from the Migration Policy Institute shows that only about 28 percent of illegal immigrants own their homes, compared to about 65 percent of U.S. citizens.

Vance’s hardline stance contrasts with his private life. His wife, Usha, is the daughter of Indian immigrants, whom he has praised for “enriching” the country. This has drawn criticism from extremists within Trump’s Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement, who question the authenticity of his immigration views.

However, some Republican lawmakers have raised doubts about the practicality of mass deportations. Representative Tony Gonzales, a Texas Republican who represents most of the U.S.-Mexico border in Congress, previously said Newsweek“You’re not going to round up and deport 10 million people. It’s simple: you don’t have the infrastructure to do that.”

The debate over immigration policy has intensified as both major parties attempt to present contrasting visions for the 2024 elections. While Trump and the Republican National Committee advocate a hard-line approach, Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, has pledged to revive President Joe Biden’s failed bipartisan border security bill.

Recent data from the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse shows that more than 620,000 deportation cases were filed in immigration courts in fiscal year 2023, of which about 236,000 resulted in deportations. That surpasses the 187,000 deportations that occurred during the height of the Trump administration in 2019.

Gonzales warned that closing the border completely would impact industries across the country, saying, “There is not a single industry that is not connected to the U.S.-Mexico border.”

There are an estimated 11.3 million immigrants in the United States without legal status. Addressing the immigration crisis requires balancing security concerns, humanitarian concerns, and practical realities.