Trump doubles down on migrant deportation, Pope tells Catholics to vote for ‘lesser evil’

Washington: Donald Trump has doubled down on his attacks against immigrants, vowing to, if elected, embark on a mass deportation program that would begin in Springfield, Ohio – the Midwest city at the centre of debunked claims about pets being eaten by Haitians.

Days after the former US president amplified the claims during the debate with Vice President Kamala Harris, a bomb threat forced the evacuation of Springfield’s city hall, schools and other buildings, prompting President Joe Biden to declare: “This has to stop.”

Donald Trump in a press conference on Friday at his golf course in Rancho Palos Verdes, California.Credit: Bloomberg

Pope Francis also entered the campaign fray when asked to provide counsel to American Catholics on how to vote in the November 5 election. Pressing on the two hot buttons for the campaign and the church – migration and abortion – Francis said both candidates were “against life, be it the one who kicks out migrants, or be it the one who kills babies”.

Francis said migration was a right described in Scripture and that anyone who did not follow the Bible’s call to welcome the stranger was committing a “grave sin”.

He was also blunt in speaking about abortion. “To have an abortion is to kill a human being. You may like the word or not, but it’s killing,” he said. “We have to see this clearly.”

Asked what voters should do, Francis recalled the civic duty to vote.

Pope Francis speaks on his plane on Friday after his 12-day journey across South-East Asia and the Pacific.Credit: AP

“One should vote, and choose the lesser evil,” he said. “Who is the lesser evil, the woman or man? I don’t know.”

However, at a press conference at his golf course in California, Trump – who has spent the past few days posting memes of cats and dogs on social media – said “the real threat is what’s happening at our border”.

He claimed migrants were “taking over cities” and “it’s like an invasion from within”. He said he would start his deportation program in Springfield and Aurora.

Aurora is a town in Colorado where a Venezuelan gang became a talking point during the debate.

“You look at Aurora in Colorado. They are taking over the towns. They’re taking over buildings. They’re going in violently,” Trump said during the debate. “They’re destroying our country.”

This claim stemmed from social media posts falsely claiming that the Tren de Aragua, said to be the largest criminal organisation in Venezuela, had taken over an apartment complex in the area – a narrative that police have since refuted.

But it was Trump’s bizarre rant about pets being kidnapped and eaten that garnered the most attention, and has led to Springfield, home to a large Haitian community, being hit with threats of violence for two days in a row.

On Thursday, two schools and the state motor vehicle agency’s local building were closed due to a bomb threat the Ohio mayor said was a “hateful response to immigration in our town”.

On Friday, two elementary schools and one middle school were also evacuated after a threatening email was received, the mayor said. Springfield officials said they were working with the FBI office to “determine the origin of the email threats”.

At the White House, Biden said the US would not exist without the determination and the “blood, sweat and tears” of black Americans. Noting that his press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, is the daughter of Haitian immigrants, he said that that community was “under attack in our country right now and it’s simply wrong”.

“This has to stop!” a fired-up Biden said. “What he’s doing, it has to stop.”

Immigration has long been Trump’s pet issue, with the Republican announcing his candidacy for the 2016 election by declaring Mexicans were rapist and murderers and promising to build a “big beautiful wall” at the southern border.

In this year’s presidential campaign, he has long promised to conduct the largest deportation operation in US history if he is re-elected, but this was the first time he said he would start the program in Springfield and Aurora.

Conversely, immigration has long been a vulnerability for the Biden-Harris administration given the record numbers of people who illegally came into the country under their watch.

The president’s decision to rescind Trump-era policies, such as halting construction of the border wall and no longer forcing asylum seekers to be sent back to Mexico to await immigration proceedings, compounded the problem.

But Trump’s bizarre rant about cats and dogs being eaten gave Harris the upper hand in the debate, with most polls so far suggesting she won the showdown in Philadelphia.

The topic has even caused an internal split within the Republicans over who is to blame. Some conservatives have pointed to the influence of far-right provocateur Laura Loomer, who has been with Trump on the campaign trail recently and aired the Springfield claims on social media the day before the debate.

With AP

Get a note directly from our foreign correspondents on what’s making headlines around the world. Sign up for the weekly What in the World newsletter here.