'Pogrom Rhetoric': Experts Warn Trump Now Openly 'Inciting Violence' Against Immigrants; More, ICE

Last edited Sat Oct 12, 2024, 02:21 AM - Edit history (2)

Alternet, Oct. 12, 2024.

On Friday evening, former President Donald Trump took to X (formerly Twitter) to post a lengthy tweet promising a brutal crackdown on immigrants across the country. His tweet is now being condemned for both its caustic tone and for invoking a centuries-old law that would allow Trump to round up and detain legal immigrants. "November 5th, 2024 will be LIBERATION DAY in America," Trump wrote. [W]e will put these vicious and bloodthirsty criminals in jail or kick them the hell OUT OF OUR COUNTRY."

The former president then invoked the names of four women killed by undocumented immigrants before announcing a new anti-immigrant initiative named after Aurora, Colorado, where he hosted a rally on Friday. Trump has become fixated on a story circulating among far-right media outlets about Venezuelan gang members in apartment buildings in Aurora to justify his mass deportations agenda, even though the city's police force and Republican mayor have said repeatedly that there is only "isolated" Venezuelan gang activity in the city of roughly 400,000 people. [Read More: 'So evil': Pro-Trump host says immigrants are 'satanic' and 'involved in human sacrifice']

"I am announcing today that upon taking office, we will have an OPERATION AURORA at the Federal Level. To expedite removals of this savage gang, I will invoke the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to target and dismantle every migrant criminal network operating on American Soil," Trump wrote in the tweet. "No person who has inflicted the violence and terror that Kamala Harris has inflicted on this community can EVER be allowed to become President of the United States!"

Trump's tweet was criticized by Washington Post editor Amanda Katz as "plain-old ethnic cleansing/pogrom rhetoric" on the social media platform Bluesky. University of Colorado-Boulder political scientist Alex Newhouse interpreted Trump's tweet as a signal that he would "deputize brownshirts and do his own Kristallnacht," a reference to Adolf Hitler's November 1938 pogrom targeting Jewish people. "Trump is inciting violence. Whether he wins or loses, there will be violence. Now and then after the election," Canadian political science professor Steven Saideman wrote on Bluesky.... Read More,
https://www.alternet.org/trump-inciting-violence-immigrants/
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* Also: 'Trump intensifies nativist message with sweeping proposal to deport immigrants,' The Guardian, Oct. 12, '24. Ed. - Republican nominee holds rally in Aurora, Colo., and exploits swirl of local rumors to push anti-immigrant plan
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Donald Trump intensified his politics of nativism and xenophobia on Friday by announcing a sweeping plan to deport Venezuelans he claimed have “infected” a once-peaceful city in Colorado. The Republican presidential nominee held a campaign rally in Aurora on a stage adorned with posters displaying mugshots of people in prison-orange uniforms with descriptions including “illegal immigrant gang members from Venezuela”.

He told the crowd: “I’m announcing today that, upon taking office, we will have an ‘Operation Aurora’ at the federal level to expedite the removals of these savage gangs.” And he pledged to invoke the Alien Enemies Act, a 1798 law that allows the president to deport any non-citizen from a country that the US is at war with. "We will send elite squads of Ice [Immigration and Customs Enforcement], border patrol and federal law enforcement officers to hunt down, arrest and deport every last illegal alien gang member until there is not a single one left in this country,” he said as the crowd roared approval.

If they return to the US, they will serve an automatic 10 years in prison without parole. “I’m hereby calling for the death penalty for any migrant that kills an American citizen or a law enforcement officer. With your vote, we will achieve complete and total victory over these sadistic monsters. It’s going to go very quickly,” he said. The rally represented a detour for Trump, since Colorado is not a battleground state and looks certain to vote for his Democratic rival, Kamala Harris. But recent events offered him an opportunity to exploit a swirl of local rumours to push his anti-immigrant message.

Aurora hit headlines in August when a video circulated showing armed men walking through an apartment building housing Venezuelan immigrants. Trump amplified the story and falsely portrayed the city as overrun by members of the Venezeulan gang Tren de Aragua, or TDA. Authorities say the incident happened in a single block and the area is again safe, noting that the local crime rate is actually declining. The Republican mayor, Mike Coffman, called Trump’s claims “grossly exaggerated.”..Trump's past dehumanising language includes claiming undocumented immigrants were “poisoning the blood of our country” and, earlier this week, he suggested that those suspected in homicide cases “have bad genes”.

The ex-president has long made immigration his signature issue and promised to stage the biggest deportation operation in US history if elected... More,
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/oct/11/trump-aurora-colorado-migrant-crackdown