Former President Trump is set to visit the US southern border in Cochise County, Arizona, this Thursday, amid a breakdown in the border that has led to an influx of hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants and a growing opioid crisis fuelled by fentanyl trafficked by drug cartels.
Trump’s campaign announced his visit on Sunday, blaming Vice President Kamala Harris, whom he dubbed “border czar Kamala Harris,” for “the nation’s worst border crisis.”
“Despite nearly 10 million migrants crossing the border in the past three and a half years, at least 99 people on terrorist watch lists being released into the United States, deadly drugs like fentanyl being trafficked by drug cartels poisoning American communities, and a significant increase in crime and chaos caused by illegal immigration, Kamala Harris’ border crisis has no end in sight,” the statement read. “Our nation continues to witness an increasing number of violent and deadly crimes committed by illegal immigrants.”
The Trump campaign then referenced Jocelyn Nangaray, Laken Riley and Rachel Morin, Americans who were allegedly killed by illegal immigrants.
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Republican presidential candidate and former President Donald Trump is scheduled to visit the U.S. southern border in Cochise County, Arizona on August 22, 2024. (AP Photo/John Bazemore)
Two Venezuelan nationals, Johan Jose Martinez Rangel, 21, and Franklin Jose Peña Ramos, 26, have been charged with murder in connection with the killing of Nungaray, 12. The two are accused of entering the United States illegally earlier this year and strangling the teenager to death in June.
Jose Ibarra, a 26-year-old Venezuelan illegal immigrant, has been charged with the murder of Riley, 22. Ibarra entered the United States in 2022 through El Paso, Texas, and was released on parole at the border. He initially lived in New York City, but was arrested on child endangerment charges before moving to Athens, Georgia.
Ibarra is charged with malice murder, felony murder, aggravated assault, aggravated battery, false imprisonment, kidnapping, interfering with a 911 call and concealing the death of another in connection with Riley’s murder.
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University of Georgia murder suspect Jose Ibarra lived within about a five-minute walk of the scene where he allegedly killed 22-year-old nursing student Laken Riley on Feb. 22. (Mark Sims/Laken Riley/Jose Ibarra for Fox News Digital)
The man responsible for Morin’s death, Victor Antonio Martinez Hernandez, a 23-year-old Salvadoran national, was also in the country illegally and, according to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), was apprehended by Border Patrol three times within a few days between January and February 2023 and each time was deported to Mexico under Title 42. He then successfully entered the U.S. as a fugitive near El Paso, Texas, in February 2023, meaning he entered the country without being inspected, admitted or paroled by U.S. immigration officials.
The Trump campaign also addressed the fentanyl crisis, saying more than half of the fentanyl pills coming into the country come through the Arizona border.
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Still images from a motion-detecting surveillance camera show a group of camouflaged people bypassing an unfinished section of southern border wall and sneaking onto an Arizona rancher’s property in May 2024. (Courtesy of Jim Chilton)
“In Maricopa County, an average of more than three people die each day due to fentanyl,” the release reads. “President Donald J. Trump knows that Arizonans and people across the nation cannot tolerate another four years of unruly Border Patrol agents who refuse to take action to secure our border and protect our country.”
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Trump is scheduled to visit the southern border in Cochise County, Arizona, at 11:30 a.m. Thursday.
Fox News Digital’s Steven Soreis, Bill Melgin, Louis Casiano, Greg Norman and Stephanie Price contributed to this report.
