Trump Pushes Immigration Conspiracy Theories and Mass Deportations – The New York Times

Former President Donald J. Trump, in an interview that aired on Fox News on Sunday, suggested falsely that Latin American governments were picking the citizens they didnt want and shipping them to the U.S. border, resurrecting a claim that was central to his 2016 campaign.

He also accused the Chinese Communist Party without providing any evidence of orchestrating illegal immigration into the United States, and said he believed China would try to interfere in the presidential election, adding that he liked President Xi Jinping a lot.

Asked on Sunday Morning Futures by the interviewer, Maria Bartiromo, whether he thought military-aged men from China were being directed by the Communist Party to come here, Mr. Trump said: I believe so.

Referring to a recent incident in New York City in which a group of men identified by police officials as migrants from Latin America attacked police officers, Mr. Trump said: The heads of these countries are smart. Theyre not sending the people that are doing a great job and that they love in the country. Theyre sending people, for the most part, that they dont want, and theyre putting them into caravans.

That statement echoed one of the most incendiary lines from his first campaign announcement speech in 2015: When Mexico sends its people, theyre not sending their best, he said at the time, continuing: Theyre bringing drugs. Theyre bringing crime. Theyre rapists. And some, I assume, are good people. He also has repeatedly and falsely said that migrants from South and Central America are coming from mental institutions and jails.

Mr. Trump also spoke approvingly, as he has before, of the military-style mass deportation of Mexican immigrants under President Dwight D. Eisenhower.

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Trump Pushes Immigration Conspiracy Theories and Mass Deportations - The New York Times