Trump Stump Speeches: Immigration

Editor’s Note: For weeks, President Donald Trump has been campaigning in states that are key to the Republican Party’s chances of maintaining control of the House and Senate. We have reviewed seven speeches he gave from Oct. 10 to Oct. 22. This is the first in a series of stories on his speeches. 

President Donald Trump is trying to make illegal immigration a key issue in the midterm elections. In Montana, which borders Canada, Trump tells supporters that “it’s going to be an election of the caravan,” referring to the several thousand Central American emigrants who are traveling to Mexico and the U.S. in search of refugee status.

In seeking to motivate his supporters to vote Republican, Trump makes wildly inaccurate and baseless immigration claims about the “radical” Democrats — a term he used 38 times in seven speeches (36 times in referring to Democrats and twice in referring to “Islamic terrorists”).

Trump warns his supporters that the “radical Democrat mob” has become the “party of crime” and wants to “throw your borders wide open to deadly drugs and ruthless gangs.” He accuses the Democrats – without evidence – of funding the migrant caravan, and falsely claims they want to give “illegal immigrants the right to vote.”

His claims about the Democrats have become increasingly exaggerated. In Arizona, he jokes, “Next thing you know, they want to buy them a car.” And then he states, as a fact, the next day in Nevada: “They want to give them cars.”

Here we look at some of the false, misleading and unsupported claims the president has made about immigration in seven speeches over 12 days, from Erie, Pennsylvania, to Missoula, Montana.

Giving ‘Illegal Immigrants the Right to Vote’? 

To a predictable chorus of boos, Trump makes the baseless claim that Democrats “want to give illegal immigrants the right to vote.”

That’s why Democrats want to give illegal