Former President Donald Trump said Wednesday that the Hamas terror attack on Israel is a reminder of President Joe Biden’s “demolition” of U.S. border security while pledging to quickly seal the border if reelected in 2024 and carry out the largest deportation operation in U.S. history.
President Trump made the remarks during an Oct. 11 rally in West Palm Beach, Florida, in which he alleged that his successor’s policies have led to a “totally open” southern border across which the same people who attacked Israel are now pouring into the United States.
“The recent terror attack are also a reminder of the deadly dangers that we face from Joe Biden’s demolition of our own border here on American soil,” he said.
Operatives from the Hamas terror group recently mounted a shock incursion into southern Israel by air, land, and sea. They killed over 1,200 people and took roughly 100 hostages, according to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).
“The same people that attacked Israel—killing, raping, torturing, and maiming innocent civilians—are right now pouring into our once beautiful USA,” President Trump claimed. “I have to say that—”once beautiful“—because what’s happened to our country in three years is not even to be believed, but they’re pouring in through totally open southern borders.”
That number is bigger than the last six years combined.
President Trump said he believes “many millions” of people are pouring across the border illegally, estimating the total number under President Biden’s watch to be roughly 15 million, while claiming that this number isn’t being reflected in official statistics and is being underreported by “fake news” media.
“In my opinion, they’re flooding in from Afghanistan, Yemen, Syria, Somalia, Iraq, Iran…unscreened, unvetted, and totally uncontrolled and many of them are young men,” President Trump said.
Like many Republicans, the former president blamed President Biden for the border crisis gripping the country.
Largest Deportation Operation in US History
With much of the world transfixed by the bloody terror attack on Israeli communities, President Trump pledged to seal the southern border, reimpose a travel ban on people from countries where terrorism is tolerated or actively stoked, and carry out mass deportations.“We will be paying the price for years to come if we don’t get them out immediately,” President Trump said of people with links to terrorist groups that have entered the United States illegally.
“We have to get them out. We’re going to have the largest deportation movement in the history of our country. We have no choice,” he continued.
“I also gave you a very strong, powerful travel ban to keep jihadists, extremists and radical Islamic terrorists the hell out of our country. We wanted them out… And it worked,” he said, while claiming that, under his watch, the U.S.-Mexico border was the most secure in history.
“We had no problems. We were tough and we kept them out. We don’t want our people killed. We don’t want our shopping centers blown up. We don’t want the problems that some people bring,” he said.
“Upon my inauguration, we will quickly seal the border and terminate every open borders policy of crooked Joe Biden, and we will carry out the largest domestic deportation operation in American history.”
Travel Ban in Focus
At the Florida rally, President Trump reiterated a pledge he made last week to reimpose a travel ban on people from countries—predominantly Muslim—where terrorism is tolerated or encouraged.“I will immediately reimpose the Trump travel ban on entry from terrorist countries and we will make it even stronger,” President Trump said.
Earlier, at a Monday rally in Wolfeboro, President Trump vowed to reimpose a travel ban if reelected.
“As president, I will once again stand strongly with the state of Israel, and we will cut off the money to the terrorists on day one,” President Trump said, before adding that he would “reimpose the travel ban on terror-afflicted countries.”
At the end of 2015, as the presidential campaign was in full swing, then-candidate Trump declared his support for a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States,” until such a time when officials fully understood what was going on.
Then, about a week after being sworn into office in 2017, President Trump signed Executive Order 13769, titled Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry Into the United States, which became known unofficially as the “Muslim ban.”
The travel ban applied to people from seven majority-Muslim countries (Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen) for 90 days, with some exceptions. The restriction was challenged in court, with President Trump following it up with several other travel bans, expanding restrictions to North Korea and Venezuela, which were also challenged in court.
By the time the U.S. Supreme Court upheld version 3.0 of the Trump travel ban in June 2018, it covered travelers from Iran, Syria, Yemen, Libya, Somalia, North Korea, and Venezuela.
All of the Trump-era travel restrictions were rescinded by President Joe Biden on the day he was sworn into office on Jan. 20, 2021.
At his campaign rally in New Hampshire on Monday, President Trump recalled his executive actions after taking office.
“I withdrew from the disastrous Iran nuclear deal, imposed the toughest ever sanctions on the regime, and imposed a strict travel ban to keep radical Islamic terrorists the hell out of our country,” he said, adding that “Joe Biden undid it. He undid it all and gave billions and billions of dollars to the world’s top sponsor of terror, tossing Israel to the bloodthirsty terrorists.”
At an earlier event in Waterloo, Iowa, President Trump said he “would not be at all surprised” if some of a $6 billion transfer from Washington to Tehran helped fund Hamas’s assault on Israel.
The Biden administration has insisted that none of the $6 billion has been spent, and even if it were, the money could only be spent on things like food and medicine, not arming terrorists.
