Former President Donald Trump said Wednesday that people crossing the U.S.-Mexico border are bringing contagious diseases with them.
“They are coming like terrorists. Many, many terrorists are coming, and people are coming with very contagious diseases,” Trump said Wednesday night during his interview with New York radio station WABC.
“You know, it’s like all of a sudden you see there’s a run on tuberculosis. There are a lot of things we haven’t talked about in years in this country,” Trump added.
Trump made similar claims in a September interview with The National Pulse about diseases brought across the southern border, when he said illegal immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country.”
“It is a very sad thing for our country. It is poisoning the blood of our country. It’s so bad and people are coming in with illnesses. People are coming with — with every possible thing you can have,” Trump said in December at a rally in New Hampshire.
In Wednesday’s interview, Trump once again claimed that people crossing the border into the US speak unknown languages.
“We have no idea who they are, where they come from,” Trump said. “We have no idea. They speak languages we don’t even know. We have people with languages we know nothing about. It’s crazy,” Trump continued.
Much of Trump’s violent rhetoric about an out-of-control southern border is routine material for him, with the former president repeatedly claiming that people crossing the border are coming from “mental institutions” and “insane asylums.”
Trump frequently references the rise in migration from South and Central American countries, promising to impose stricter border regulations. Last Saturday, while speaking at the NRA’s annual convention, Trump said that if he were the leader of a South American country, he would send criminals and prisoners to America “faster than they do.”
“Those in South America who are sending all their criminals, prisoners and gangs to our country – smartly,” Trump said. “I would do the same thing if I were there. I would do the same. I would do it faster than them,” he said.
While he has pledged to reinforce and work closely with local authorities in border communities, Trump has remained vague about the specific policy he would use to bolster border security. That hasn’t stopped Trump’s sharp criticism of Biden’s handling of the border — a main point of attack for Trump ads and fundraising emails.
This story originally appeared on NBCNews.com read the full story
