Trump on Haitian migrants from Springfield: ‘They must be removed’

Former President Donald Trump spoke with Ali Bradley, who leads NewsNation’s daily coverage of the border. Follow Ali on X and click here to download the NewsNation app to see exclusive reporting from the border every day.

HOUSTON ( NewsNation ) – Former President Donald Trump told NewsNation exclusively in an interview Wednesday that he would revoke temporary protected status for Haitian migrants living in Springfield, Ohio, and ensure their return to Haiti.

The Republican candidate was at a private fundraiser in Texas when he discussed the situation in Springfield, telling NewsNation border reporter Ali Bradley that 32,000 Haitian migrants had been brought into a community of 52,000.

Trump told NewsNation he believes Haiti would accept the migrants back under his leadership.

“It has nothing to do with Haiti or anything else. You have to remove the people, and you have to return them to their own country,” he said.

“Springfield is such a beautiful place. Have you seen what happened to it? It’s overrun. You can’t do that to people. I would revoke (the protected status) and I would take (the migrants) back to their country.”

The comments come after Trump’s running mate, Republican Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio, revised false claims he made about immigrants in Springfield, Ohio eating pets, now saying he is “concerned about American citizens.” in the city.

“In Springfield, and in communities across the country, you have schools that are overwhelmed, housing that is completely unaffordable because we have brought in millions of illegal immigrants to compete with Americans for scarce housing,” Vance said as he debated the governor of Minnesota, Tim Walz. Democratic opponent, in the only vice presidential debate of the election.

Enabling and protecting border law enforcement

The former president told NewsNation he would empower local law enforcement to carry out what he calls the largest deportation in U.S. history and possibly deploy military forces to combat drug cartels.

Trump said border agents “know everything about (migrants)… they know the good, the bad, and they’re going to take them out.”

To address cartel violence along the southern border, Trump proposed a “military operation” to counter the increasingly sophisticated tactics of Mexican drug organizations, which are now reportedly using drone jammers and have been found using rocket-propelled grenades and improvised explosive devices near the border.

“They’re very rich, and they’re very bad,” Trump said of the cartels. ‘We will have to take military action. …They kill 300,000 people a year.”

Two Mexican drug cartels helped flood the United States with fentanyl, a synthetic opioid 80 times stronger than morphine that is killing more than 200 Americans every day, authorities say.

The Sinaloa and Jalisco cartels have established a sophisticated supply chain, sourcing precursor chemicals from China and producing fentanyl in clandestine Mexican labs before smuggling it across the US border, according to Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) reports.

Mexican drug cartels operating along the U.S.-Mexico border are using electronic devices to disrupt drones used by U.S. border officials to track immigrants who have entered the United States illegally, NewsNation has learned.

In September 2023, Border Patrol agents in Texas discovered a backpack containing cannonball-sized IEDs. It was not the first time the US government discovered potential explosives at the border.

In May 2023, NewsNation reported that border officials recovered a rudimentary device made using an M&M container tied with electrical tape.

The former president also praised GOP Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s border initiatives but insisted that border security ultimately requires federal action. inside, it’s closed. ”

Trump predicted he would win New Mexico because of its southern border. Trump lost the state by about 11 points in 2020 and by about 8 points in 2016.

How many people cross the border?

U.S. Border Patrol apprehensions along the southwest border increased slightly from July to August but remain among the lowest monthly figures of the Biden administration.

Agents had 58,038 encounters between ports of entry in August, up from 56,399 in July, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection data.

The actual number of encounters at U.S. borders is expected to reach about 10 million by the end of the budget year, including repeated crossings and deportations.

These encounters include repeated crossings and deportations, meaning the actual number of unique individuals entering the country is much lower.

‘The largest deportation effort in American history’

One of Trump’s main promises if he is re-elected is to organize the largest domestic deportation in American history. He made similar promises when he first ran for office, but deportations never exceeded 350,000 during his administration.

By comparison, then-President Barack Obama carried out 432,000 deportations in 2013, the highest annual total since records began being kept.

This time, Trump has provided some more details about his promises. He said he will use the National Guard to round up migrants. And he said he would invoke the Alien Enemies Act, a 1798 law that allows the president to deport any noncitizen from a country with which the U.S. is at war.

He has also pledged to kick out hundreds of thousands of immigrants who entered the country through two major Biden administration programs if he is re-elected.

Any plans for mass deportation would certainly be challenged in court and would be enormously expensive to implement. And it would depend on the willingness of countries to take back their citizens.

Trump also said he would bring back policies he put in place during his first term, such as the Remain in Mexico program and Title 42. Remain in Mexico forced migrants to wait in Mexico while their asylum cases were processed, while Title 42 restricted immigration in the public domain. health reasons.

He has said he will revive and expand a travel ban from his term, which originally targeted citizens of seven Muslim-majority countries, and has promised a new “ideological screening” of immigrants to eliminate “dangerous lunatics, haters, bigots and maniacs.”

Trump also wants to end the birthright rights of people born in the US whose parents are both in the country illegally.

Why is the border an important voter issue?

Making the border more secure and other immigration-related issues remain among voters’ top concerns heading into the 2024 election. Trump has used the border as a backdrop for a series of campaign stops in recent months.

Trump has repeatedly criticized President Joe Biden and Harris, claiming that the president and his “border czar” are responsible for the steady numbers of migrants and the problems that Trump says arise specifically from illegal border crossings.

The president has responded with the effectiveness of his executive order, which led to a drop in border encounters after a record 250,000 encounters were reported in December 2023 alone.

There has been a significant decline in the number of encounters between federal agents assigned to the U.S.-Mexico border and immigrants who have entered the country illegally.

Political stalemate over border policy

In June 2024, Biden released a series of executive actions limiting migrant crossings until the number of encounters at the border remains consistently low — fewer than 2,500 per day for an entire week — to give Border Patrol more time to deal with each person’s situation migrant to go.

The president also clarified his use of executive powers, saying he was doing what Congress wouldn’t do on a bipartisan immigration deal that failed in the Senate after Trump urged Republican lawmakers to vote against it.

Jeff Arnold of NewsNation and The Associated Press contributed to this report.