Campaigning in North Carolina just days before Super Tuesday, former President Donald Trump vowed to launch “the largest domestic deportation operation in American history” if he returns to the White House.
Addressing thousands of supporters in Greensboro on Saturday afternoon, Trump said the southern border was an “open and gushing wound” that has been “pouring drugs, gangs, terrorists, and millions and millions of illegal aliens into our country,” and promised to end what he said were the Biden administration’s “open border” policies on his first day in office.
Trump touted his own administration’s approach to curbing illegal immigration, praising policies of sending migrants seeking asylum to Mexico while they awaited their court dates and using existing laws to deny entry to migrants beginning at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“If you broke in, we caught you, we detained you, we deported you immediately, just like clockwork,” Trump said to cheering supporters.
Polling has shown that immigration is a top issue for voters this year, in some cases second only to the economy.
The Biden administration has blasted Republicans in Congress for rejecting a bipartisan border security bill that Trump came out against strongly. Trump and President Joe Biden were both in Texas on Thursday, visiting different areas along the border.
During his visit to Texas, Biden urged Trump to reconsider his stance on the border deal and join him in pressing Congress to pass it.
