Key Points
- Trump has accused immigrants of poisoning the country at a rally in New Hampshire.
- His repeated comments have been labelled as 'xenophobic' and 'racist' by the Anti-Defamation League.
- The US presidential canditate has vowed to crack down on immigration, both legal and illegal.
Presidential candidate Donald Trump has accused illegal immigrants of "poisoning" the United States and likened them to snakes, repeating language previously criticised for mirroring Nazi rhetoric.
Trump has promised to crack down on illegal immigration and restrict legal immigration if elected to a second four-year term in office.
The Republican front-runner said a record number of undocumented immigrants were attempting to cross the US border illegally as well as arriving from Asia, Africa and South America.
"They're poisoning the blood of our country," Trump told thousands of supporters at a rally in New Hampshire. "All over the world they are pouring into our country."
He also recited the lyrics of a song he had repurposed to liken immigrants to deadly snakes.
If re-elected, Trump promised "to stop the invasion of our southern border and begin the largest domestic deportation operation in American history."
Trump's remarks labelled 'dangerous'
Trump used the same "poisoning the blood" language during an interview with The National Pulse, a right-leaning website, that was published in late September.
It prompted a rebuke from the Anti-Defamation League, whose leader, Jonathan Greenblatt, called the language "racist, xenophobic and despicable."
Jason Stanley, a Yale professor and author of a book on fascism, said Trump's repeated use of that language was dangerous.
He said Trump's words echoed the rhetoric of Nazi leader Adolf Hitler, who warned against German blood being poisoned by Jews in his political treatise Mein Kampf.
"He is now employing this vocabulary in repetition in rallies. Repeating dangerous speech increases its normalisation and the practices it recommends," Stanley said. "This is very concerning talk for the safety of immigrants in the US."
In October, Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung dismissed criticism of the former president's language, arguing that similar language was prevalent in books, news articles and on TV.
When asked for comment on Saturday, Cheung did not directly address Trump's remarks and instead referred to the controversies over how US colleges are handling campus protests since the Hamas attack on Israel on 7 October.
He said both media and academia had given "safe haven for dangerous antisemitic and pro-Hamas rhetoric that is both dangerous and alarming".
How Trump and Biden differ on immigration
Trump is the leading candidate for the Republican Party's 2024 presidential nomination and has made border security a major theme of his campaign.
He is vowing to restore the hardline policies from his 2017-2021 presidency and implement new ones that clamp down further on immigration.
President Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic Party nominee, has sought to enact more humane and orderly immigration policies but has struggled with record levels of migrants, a problem seen as a vulnerability for his re-election campaign.
On the campaign trail, Trump has repeatedly used inflammatory language to describe the border issue and slam Biden's policies.
