Former President Donald Trump vowed Saturday to end the nation's immigration crisis if re-elected by pushing Congress to repeal sanctuary city provisions that provide protection for illegal border crossers.
“Today I am announcing a new plan to abolish all sanctuary cities in North Carolina and across the nation,” the Republican presidential candidate told a crowd of 10,000 at AeroCenter Wilmington in North Carolina.
“I call on Congress to pass legislation outlawing sanctuary cities across the country, and I will use the full force of the federal government to pressure jurisdictions that refuse to cooperate with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and U.S. Customs and Border Protection,” he added.
“As soon as I take office, I will send additional federal law enforcement to every city that is failing to extradite criminal aliens — and there are many — to track down and arrest every gang member, drug dealer, rapist, murderer and criminal immigrant who is illegally harboring them,” Trump vowed.
“We're going to get them out of North Carolina and send them back home where they belong.”
It was his first outdoor rally since Sept. 15, when authorities thwarted a second assassination attempt on the Republican presidential candidate's life.
Speaking for more than an hour in the battleground state of North Carolina, Trump slammed the Harris-Biden administration and claimed a victory for Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris in November would spell the end of American democracy.
He also rejected another debate with Harris, who boasted the same day that she had accepted a CNN invitation to debate the two on October 23.
Trump claimed Harris only wanted to debate because he was “losing” the race, despite most opinion polls showing the race close together, and because early voting had already begun.
“She did one debate. I did two,” Trump said, referring to his earlier face-off with President Biden.
Trump also repeatedly mocked Harris' public speaking style, called her running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, a “wacko” and vowed to work with Elon Musk to send humans to Mars if re-elected.
The hearing in the Tar Heel State also marks Trump's first since a shocking report emerged accusing the state's Republican gubernatorial candidate, Mark Robinson, of calling himself a black Nazi and proposing to reinstate slavery in an online forum several years ago.
The state's Lt. Governor Robinson denied the allegations and said he would remain in the gubernatorial race.
Robinson did not attend Saturday's rally, and Trump did not mention her during his speech, but the Trump campaign told The Washington Post that it plans to continue supporting Robinson and all of North Carolina's Republican candidates.
