Donald Trump and his allies have spent years amplifying a conspiracy theory that Democratic officials are intentionally letting people into the country illegally to “replace” the voting population.
But lately, the former president has been claiming that the “invasion” is specifically coming after Black Americans.
He now claims that “the Black population is going to die” without his violent immigration agenda in place, pitching his anti-immigration platform as a way to attract Black voters.
“The Black people are going to be decimated by the millions of people that are coming into the country,” he told Bloomberg in an interview published on July 16.
“There will never be a decimation like this, and they’re already feeling it,” he added. “Their wages have gone way down. Their jobs are being taken by the migrants coming in illegally into the country.”
His language then turned apocalyptic.
“The Black population in this country is going to die because of what’s happened, what’s going to happen to their jobs — their jobs, their housing, everything,” he said. “I want to stop that. … They’re taking everything.”
Trump told Bloomberg that his plan for “the Black population” includes stopping “20 million people from coming into the country that’ll work for one-third what they’re working for.”
He then suggested that he believes President Joe Biden wants people who live in the country illegally to take Black Americans’ jobs from them.
“They’re all losing their jobs. It’s not a story yet, but it will be. Does that make sense to you?” he said. “It’s a terrible thing that’s happened, and they are affected more than anybody. And they know that I don’t want this to happen. They know because many of them lost jobs already. They know that I don’t want it to happen and Biden does want it to happen.”
Trump has repeatedly falsely claimed that his administration has done more for Black workers than any other president, including achieving the lowest Black unemployment rate and poverty rate while he was in office. But those record lows were eclipsed by figures during the Biden administration.
In a speech to the NAACP’s 115th national convention in Las Vegas on July 17, Biden said Trump is “lying like hell” about Black unemployment when that figure hit a “record low” while he was in office.
While employment gains since 2018 have almost entirely come from workers who weren’t born in the US, they are all nearly naturalized US citizens and legal residents — not “illegals,” according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
In campaign speeches at his rallies, the Republican nominee for president has repeatedly claimed that countries are emptying out mental institutions and prisons to “poison the blood of our country.”
At the first 2024 presidential debate, Trump said “they” are “taking Black jobs” and “you’re going to see something that’s going to be the worst in our history.”
“‘Black jobs.’ I love this phrase,” Biden said in remarks to the NAACP.
“Tells us a lot about the man and his character. Folks, I know what a Black job is. It’s the vice president of the United States,” he added. “I know what a Black job is. The first Black president in American history, Barack Obama. … I nominated the first Black woman to the United States Supreme Court. It matters.”
Trump’s false claims that elections are “rigged” against him is also dovetailing with his immigration agenda based around a conspiracy theory that Biden is allowing millions of people to flood into the country illegally.
Standing next to House Speaker Mike Johnson at Mar-a-Lago in April, Trump claimed “we have an election problem” and demanded that the US-Mexico border be “closed.”
“Millions and millions are pouring in that no one’s reporting,” he said. “Some are terrorists … They come from jails and prisons, they come from mental institutions and insane asylums. They come from all over the world.”
Trump also endorsed a recently passed House measure that would ban noncitizens from voting, which is already against the law.