©Reuters. Republican presidential candidate and former U.S. President Donald Trump speaks at a rally in Greensboro, North Carolina, U.S., March 2, 2024. REUTERS/Jonathan Drake
By James Oliphant
GREENSBORO, North Carolina (Reuters) – Republican leader Donald Trump on Saturday accused President Joe Biden of being involved in a “conspiracy to overthrow the United States” through lax security policies that allowed millions of migrants to cross the border of the United States with Mexico.
Speaking at a campaign rally in Greensboro, North Carolina, Trump appeared to suggest, as he has in the past, that Democrats hope to convert migrants entering the country illegally into reliable voters.
The Biden administration, Trump said, seeks “to collapse the American system, override the will of actual American voters, and establish a new power base that gives them control for generations.”
Trump explained at an evening rally in Richmond, Virginia, after repeating the allegations. Referring to the Biden White House, he said: “They are trying to register (migrants) to get them to vote in the next election.”
Trump also accused Biden of providing “aid and comfort to foreign enemies of the United States” as part of his border policies.
In response, Biden’s campaign highlighted a border security bill introduced in Congress that Trump helped torpedo last month by urging Republicans to vote against it.
“Once again Trump is trying to distract the American people from the fact that he struck down the fairest and toughest border security bill in decades because he believed it would help his campaign. Sad,” Biden’s spokesman said, Ammar Moussa.
Under pressure from Republicans who accuse him of failing to police the border, Biden last year called on Congress to provide more law enforcement funding and said he would “close the border” if given new authority to reject migrants.
Last month, however, a bipartisan immigration bill stalled in the US Senate after Trump told Republicans not to support it despite it containing several border security measures they sought.
In previous statements, Trump has suggested that Democrats are intentionally allowing migrants into the country to boost their political support, a long-standing claim espoused by the far right known as the “great replacement theory.”
Only US citizens can vote in federal elections. But Trump has made border security a central tenet of his campaign as polls show voters of both parties are increasingly concerned about the steady flow of migration.
Both Biden and Trump visited the southern border along Texas on Thursday in separate visits, a sign that both see the issue as politically potent.
Trump often claims without evidence, as he did again on Saturday, that migrants have caused a surge in violent crime in U.S. cities.
At the rally in North Carolina, Trump called the influx of migrants an “invasion” and said Biden will “turn our public schools into migrant camps.”
“We will not let them turn the United States into a crime-ridden, disease-ridden landfill,” Trump said.
Jennifer Mercieca, a professor at Texas A&M University who wrote a book on Trump’s rhetoric, said Trump often uses baseless conspiracy allegations to undermine opponents with “self-sealing narratives” that cannot be proven true or false.
“He previously said Biden’s weakness was allowing weakness at the border, but here it’s a conspiracy,” he said. “Trump prevented the border bill from passing so he could make these charges against Biden.”
Trump was campaigning in North Carolina and Virginia ahead of Tuesday’s primaries, two of 16 nominating contests being held across the country that are likely to push him close to the Republican presidential nomination.