- Last-minute legal ruling allows betting on US election
- Despite hurricanes, Floridians refuse to leave 'paradise'
- Israel observes Yom Kippur amid firestorm over Lebanon strikes
- Trump demonizes migrants in dark, misleading speech
- X says 'alert' to manipulation efforts after pro-Russia bots report
- US, European markets rise before Boeing unveils sweeping job cuts
- Small Quebec company dominates one part of NHL hockey: jerseys
- Comoros shock Tunisia, Salah, Mbeumo strike in AFCON qualifiers
- Boeing to cut 10% of workforce as it sees big Q3 loss
- Germany win in Nations League as 10-man Dutch rescue point
- Undav brace sends Germany to victory against Bosnia
- Israel says fired at 'threat' near UN position in Lebanon
- Want to film in Paris? No sexism allowed
- Ecuador's last mountain iceman dies at 80
- Milton leaves at least 16 dead, millions without power in Florida
- Senegal set to announce breakaway development agenda: PM
- UN says 2 peacekeepers wounded in south Lebanon explosions
- Injury-hit Australia thrash 'embarrassing' Pakistan at Women's T20 World Cup
- Internal TikTok documents show prioritization of traffic over well-being
- Israel says fired at 'immediate threat' near UN position in Lebanon
- New US coach Pochettino hails Pulisic but worries over workload
- Brazil orders closure of 2,000 betting sites
- UK govt urged to raise pro-democracy tycoon's case with China
- Sculptor Lalanne's animal creations sell for $59 mn
- From Tesla to Trump: Behind Musk's giant leap into politics
- US, European markets rise as investors weigh rates, earnings
- In Colombia, children trade plastic waste for school supplies
- Supercharged hurricanes trigger 'perfect storm' for disinformation
- JPMorgan Chase profits top estimates, bank sees 'resilient' US economy
- Djokovic proves staying power as he progresses to Shanghai semi-finals
- Sheffield Utd boss Wilder 'numb' after Baldock death
- Little progress at key meet ahead of COP29 climate summit
- Fans immerse themselves in Marina Abramovic's first China exhibition
- Israel says conducting review after UN peacekeepers wounded in Lebanon
- 'Party atmosphere': Skygazers treated to another aurora show
- Djokovic 'overwhelmed' after 'greatest rival' Nadal's retirement
- Zelensky in Berlin says hopes war with Russia will end next year
- Kyrgyzstan opens rare probe into glacier destruction
- European Mediterranean states discuss Middle East, migration
- Djokovic proves staying power as progresses to Shanghai semi-finals
- Hurricane Milton leaves at least 16 dead as Florida cleans up
- Britain face 'ultimate challenge' in America's Cup duel with New Zealand
- Lebanon calls for 'immediate' ceasefire in Israel-Hezbollah war
- Nihon Hidankyo: Japan's A-bomb survivors awarded Nobel
- Thunberg leads pro-Palestinian, climate protest in Milan
- Boat captain rescued clinging to cooler in Gulf of Mexico after storm Milton
- Tears, warnings after Japan atomic survivors group win Nobel
- 'Unspeakable horror': the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki
- Stock markets diverge before China weekend briefing
- Christian villagers 'trapped' in south Lebanon crossfire
Trump demonizes migrants in dark, misleading speech
Donald Trump painted an apocalyptic picture of a country being "occupied" by hordes of criminal foreigners in a campaign speech Friday as he escalated his efforts to make November's US election about a migrant crime wave that isn't happening.
With the White House race neck-and-neck in the final stretch, the Republican ex-president has been dividing his closing pitch between a protectionist economic message and riling his largely white, working class supporters by demonizing immigrants.
As his Democratic election rival Kamala Harris pledged to work with Republicans to promote united government, Trump delivered as divisive a speech as he has ever given, wildly exaggerating local tensions and misleading his audience about immigration statistics and policy.
"America is known, all throughout the world, as 'Occupied America.' They call it 'occupied.' We're being occupied by a criminal force," Trump thundered, in an 80-minute appearance Aurora, Colorado focused almost entirely on immigration.
"But to everyone here in Colorado and all across our nation, I make this pledge and vow to you: November 5, 2024 will be Liberation Day in America," he added, flanked by posters of foreign suspected criminals.
While the US government has struggled for years to manage its southern border with Mexico, Trump has super-charged concerns by claiming an "invasion" is underway by migrants he says will rape and murder Americans.
- 'Enemy within' -
Aurora was the scene of a viral video, played on a loop in right-wing media, showing armed Latinos rampaging through an apartment building.
The incident spurred sweeping, false narratives about the town in the Denver suburbs being terrorized by Latin American migrants -- fueling Trump's election message that the United States is overrun by what he calls "savages" and "animals."
Smearing Harris as a "criminal," Trump said falsely that Venezuelan gangs in Colorado had been given permission to shoot police, and spoke darkly of an "enemy within" that he defined as "all the scum that we have to deal with that hate our country."
If Harris got four years in office, Trump said, "you would have 200 million people come in... the country would be over."
Trump vowed to tackle migrant gangs using the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 -- which allows the federal government to round up and deport foreigners belonging to a country with which America is at war -- as part of a mass deportation drive he christened "Operation Aurora."
Violent crime, which spiked under Trump, has in fact fallen in every year of the Biden administration.
Migrants commit fewer crimes proportionately than the native population, though migrant suspects have been named in a few high-profile cases of violent attacks on women and children, infuriating many Republican voters.
Illegal immigration numbers at the southern border are now about where they were in 2020, the last year of Trump's presidency, after peaking at 250,000 migrant crossings in the month of December 2023.
Harris, campaigning in Scottsdale, Arizona, provided a marked contrast to Trump as she pushed a message of unity, pledging to institute a "bipartisan council of advisors" in addition to having a Republican in her cabinet.
- 'Back where they came from' -
"In the last several years in our country there are some powerful forces that are trying to divide us as Americans, would cheer us on if we point fingers at each other," she said, adding: "We have more in common than what separates us."
With less than four weeks to the November 5 election, polls show a race too close to call. The latest Wall Street Journal poll Friday gave Harris slim leads in four of the seven swing states, but all the key contests are within the margin of error.
Aurora's police department told AFP this week that it had only isolated reports of activity in the city by the Venezuelan street gang called Tren de Aragua.
And the Republican mayor, Mike Coffman, called Trump's claims "grossly exaggerated," offering to give him a tour of Aurora, which he called a "safe city -- not a city overrun by Venezuelan gangs."
However, Trump clearly believes his fearmongering is striking a chord.
He has similarly promoted the entirely fictious story that Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio, are eating residents' cats and dogs.
In Aurora, he repeated his threat to deport the community, which is in Ohio legally, saying they "have to go back where they came from."
T.Bondarenko--BTB