Trump blasts Clinton over immigration at Houston luncheon
Striking a somber tone at a luncheon in Houston Saturday, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump blasted Hillary Clinton over her immigration policies, warning that she is “effectively proposing to abolish the border” of the United States.
“Hillary Clinton is the person -- and I mean the first person -- to ever run for the presidency of a country effectively proposing to abolish the borders around the country that she’s supposed to be representing,” Trump said at an event for the Remembrance Project, a support group for families who have lost a loved one at the hands of an undocumented immigrant.
“But the media doesn’t want you to know that,” he said from the podium flanked by members of the group. “So they’ll never ask her any questions about her plan. Won’t be talked about at the debate -- which is going to be a very interesting period of time.”
The GOP nominee proceeded to blast Clinton for some specifics of her proposals, charging that “her plans calls for total amnesty in the first 100 days, which means Obamacare, Social Security and Medicare for illegal immigrants.”
“Hillary Clinton has even announced that she plans to go around Congress and implement amnesty by executive order, violating our Constitution and putting the entire nation in grave peril,” he said.
But some of the attacks Trump presented in his speech didn’t quite ring true.
For example, while Trump cited federal government data in saying there were “more than two million convicted criminal illegal immigrants inside of the United States right now,” the number is actually much lower.
The Washington Post fact-checked that reported statistic earlier this month, and according to a 2013 report by the Department of Homeland Security, there were about 1.9 million “removable criminal aliens” in the U.S. -- a number that includes both undocumented immigrants and those people who are lawfully in the country as permanent residents or who have temporary visas.
And while it’s correct that Clinton has proposed expanding health care coverage under the Affordable Care Act to undocumented immigrants, a fact-check by Politifact rated a similar statement by Trump on Social Security benefits as “mostly false.”
Clinton’s immigration plan also calls for introducing immigration reform to Congress within her first 100 days -- not that she would grant full citizenship to undocumented immigrants by executive actions.
Trump’s speech on immigration, which he read off of teleprompters, came just a day after the GOP nominee suggested disarming Clinton’s Secret Service detail to “see what happens to her.”
“Take their guns away! She doesn’t want guns,” Trump told a raucous crowd in Miami Friday. “Let’s see what happens to her. Take their guns away. OK? It would be very dangerous.”
Trump continued to rip into Clinton on Twitter, calling her his favored moniker (“Crooked Hillary”) and once more insinuating that her security detail should function without guns.
The real estate mogul also targeted other critics on his favored social media platform, including former Defense Secretary Robert Gates and New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd.
Of Gates, who wrote an op-ed attacking Trump as “unfit” to take on the commander-in-chief mantle, Trump said this:
And despite a seemingly amicable press relationship with Dowd in the past, Trump fired off a number of insults against the Times writer on Saturday, labeling her “wacky” and a “neurotic dope”: