Immigrants eat pets and steal jobs, Trump claims during presidential debate

Trump attacks immigrants

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump took a hard line against immigrants during the September 10 presidential debate, pledging to deport at least 15 million migrants immediately after taking office.

“These people that come here … they eat the dogs. They eat the cats. They eat the pets of the people that live there,” the former president said, referring to debunked reports of Haitian migrants trapping and barbecuing animals in Springfield, Ohio.

Karen Graves, strategic engagement manager for Springfield, told CBS News that there was no evidence to support such claims. “In response to recent rumors of criminal activity by our city’s immigrant population, we want to clarify that there have been no credible reports or specific allegations of pets being harmed, injured or abused by individuals within the immigrant community,” she said.

Senator Ted Cruz and former Twitter owner Elon Musk made similar claims the day before the debate.

‘Violent criminals’

Immigration was at the center of the evening debate, which took place in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, a key pivotal state. “Pennsylvania is the battleground of battlegrounds. It’s where everything happens,” Mohan Seshadri, executive director of the Asian Pacific Islander Political Alliance, told reporters at an EMS news briefing on Sept. 6.

Trump continued to bring up immigration in nearly every question ABC News reporters David Muir and Lynsey Davis asked. He blamed migration for high inflation. “Millions of people are pouring into our country from prisons and jails, from mental institutions and insane asylums. And they’re coming in and taking jobs that are now occupied by African Americans and Hispanics and also by unions.”

Trump blamed immigrants for the high crime rates, saying their home countries had actually seen a drop in crime because more criminals were reportedly flooding the U.S. “They’re taking over the cities. They’re taking over the buildings. They’re going in violently. These are the people that Harris and Biden brought into our country. And they’re destroying our country. They’re dangerous.”

Plan for mass deportation

Muir asked Trump about his plan to deport more than 11 million migrants and asked whether Border Patrol agents would go “door to door.” Trump dodged the question, saying the numbers were closer to 21 million people. He has said he will use the National Guard, the U.S. military and local law enforcement to carry out the largest mass deportation in U.S. history.

During the debate, which lasted more than 90 minutes, Harris, the daughter of an Indian immigrant mother and a Jamaican immigrant father, never once defended or advocated immigration and migration.

The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy has published a report report In August, it was noted that undocumented immigrants paid nearly $100 billion in federal, state and local tax revenues in 2022, an average of about $9,000 per person.

Undocumented immigrants pump billions into the economy

That year, undocumented immigrants paid $25.7 billion in Social Security taxes, $6.4 billion in Medicare taxes, and $1.8 billion in unemployment insurance taxes in 2022. But they are not eligible for Social Security, Medicare or unemployment benefits.

If Trump’s draconian plan for mass deportations comes to fruition, it will “create a perfect storm of economic hardship for California and other major agricultural states,” Edward Kissam said in a recent report. opinion piece for EMS. Undocumented immigrants add about $2 billion to California’s coffers each year.

“Given that at least four out of five undocumented farmworkers plan to stay in agriculture for five or more years, why deport them when labor shortages have been a constant challenge for the sector for at least two decades?” Kissam asked, noting that undocumented immigrants work not only in the fields, but also as supervisors, production managers, packers, technicians, truck drivers and warehouse workers.

Filipino nurses

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the U.S. has relied on nurses from the Philippines, who make up about a third of foreign-born LVNs. Filipino nurses have been on the frontlines of the pandemic, working directly with patients in hospitals and nursing homes. Conversely, white nurses have largely worked in outpatient settings, according to a report from the Berkeley Interdisciplinary Migration Initiative.

In total, immigrants account for 17% of US GDP, which equates to an annual revenue of $3.3 trillion.

Border Tsar

As vice president, Harris has been tasked with getting the U.S. border under control and addressing the root causes of migration from Central America. During the debate, Trump slammed Harris’s failure to manage the border, claiming that millions of migrants had flooded into the country under her watch.

Moderator Muir noted that illegal border crossings had reached a record high over the past three years and asked why the Biden administration had waited until six months before the election to implement new policies.

Harris fought back with comments she had made several times during the campaign. “I am the only person on this stage who has prosecuted transnational criminal organizations for trafficking weapons, drugs and people.”

Trump killed the bill

She noted that members of Congress had drafted a bipartisan bill last year to secure the border, which she supported. “That bill would have added 1,500 border agents to the border. It would have allowed us to stem the flow of fentanyl into the United States and increase resources to prosecute transnational criminal organizations that traffic weapons, drugs, and people.”

“But you know what happened with that law? Donald Trump picked up the phone, called some people in Congress and said, ‘Do away with it.’ Because he’d rather campaign on a problem than solve a problem,” Harris said. “The people of our country really need a leader who’s focused on solutions, who’s actually going to address the problems.”

Shortly after the debate, Harris received a long-awaited endorsement from megastar Taylor Swift, who, in defiance of Trump’s running mate JD Vance, posted her endorsement on Instagram alongside a photo of herself hugging her cat.

This article was first published on Ethnic Media Services

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