Trump’s Unchallenged Falsehoods on Immigration Leave Advocates Frustrated and Fearful

Former president donald trump dominated the immigration portion of the presidential debate on Thursday night, repeating lies and false narratives with little or no resistance from the president Joe Bidenwho seemed unprepared to refute much of the predictable misinformation about immigration his opponent was selling.

For Jeffrey Thielman, who runs the New England International Institute, an organization that helps refugees and immigrants in need of resettlement, the debate was peppered with moments when Biden “wasn’t able to articulate very clearly what he thought.”

“That is a concern,” Thielman said, adding that his organization has been preparing for the prospect of a second Trump term. He described it as “scary” because the organization predicts it could lose a third of its federal funding if Trump wins.

His concerns echoed those of a dozen Latino and immigrant rights organizations who spoke to NBC News. They expressed disappointment at a debate that strayed from any meaningful solutions and provoked fear about the future of immigration policy.

Biden missed an important opportunity to fact-check his opponent and provide appropriate context for the immigration issue, and to move him away from “dehumanizing rhetoric that falsely portrays immigrants as inherent threats,” 16 Latino advocacy organizations, including America’s Voice , Alianza for Progress, Latino Victory and Voto Latino, said in a joint statement on Friday.

Throughout the campaign, Trump and other Republicans grabbed to a handful of criminal cases involving immigrants as a way of pushing for hard-line immigration policies, although “recent research suggests that those who immigrate (legally or illegally) are no more likely, and may even be less likely, to commit crimes in the U.S. ”, according to the US Department of Justice National Institute of Justice.

Nayna Gupta, policy director at the National Immigrant Justice Center, said it was problematic in the debate when the focus was on individual criminal acts involving migrants “in a way that suggests that immigrant communities in general are somehow dangerous.”

Clarissa Martinez, vice president of the UnidosUS Latino vote initiative, said the president missed another good opportunity to “focus on balanced approach Latinos want to see”When it comes to immigration issues.

Biden did not mention his administration’s most recent immigration actions prevent migrants who cross the border illegally from receiving asylum It is expanding protections for undocumented spouses of US citizens and their children.

At a time when Trump has made immigration a centerpiece of his campaign, polls show that Latinos not only hear more from Republicans about immigration, but also have less and less confidence in the way Democrats handle the issue.

“If the other side doesn’t show up to define themselves, your opponent will define you,” Martinez said of the cost of Biden not being able to articulate his immigration agenda during the debate.

Stephen Nuño, a political scientist at Northern Arizona University, said Biden and Democrats have clearly struggled to penetrate Trump’s immigration rhetoric, which was demonstrated in the debate. Trump accused Biden of leaving “millions” of people in the US.”who are from prisons, people who are from mental institutions, mental hospitals, terrorists.”

“What would be a reasonable rebuttal to something that is not just a lie but madness? … As well as saying, ‘That’s not true,’” Nuño said.

Trump also said that migrants were taking “black jobs” and “Hispanic jobs.” who received resistancen what these terms mean.

There is also no proof of Trump’s claims: data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that black and Hispanic workers recorded gains during the Biden and Trump administrations.

Under Trump, the unemployment rate for blacks fell to 5.3% in September 2019 and to 3.9% for Latinos – reaching record lows at the time. Those rates fell again under Biden, with blacks seeing a new low of 4.8% in April 2023 and Hispanics reaching 3.9% unemployment again in September 2022.

‘Missed opportunity’

Trump focused on the economy, crime and immigration during his debate appearance — deflecting questions he received on other topics to shift attention to the trifecta of issues that have consistently fueled his base.

Several times during the debate, Trump said falsely Biden is “destroying Medicare because all these people are coming in, they’re putting them on Medicare. They are putting them on Social Security”, also saying that “millions of people are entering our country” and “taking the place of our citizens”.

trump also said falsely“We have a border that is the most dangerous place anywhere in the world — considered the most dangerous place anywhere in the world.”

Marisa Limon Garza, executive director of the Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center, said that “after last night’s debate, one thing became clear: Politicians often ignore facts when discussing border and immigrant communities. … These mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters are not the scapegoats for all of our nation’s ills.”

Krish O’Mara Vignarajah, president and CEO of Global Refuge, said he doesn’t think the discussion around immigration has “left anyone feeling enlightened.”

“Unfortunately, the discourse has been dominated by misinformation that has gone unchallenged, and that is a missed opportunity,” she said, adding that crises like affordable housing and the opioid epidemic are being blamed on immigrants. “And I think it gives people false hope that if we close the border that it will solve these problems,” she said. “And that is clearly not the case.”

Thielman pointed to what he saw happening in his community and the threat that could result from Trump’s incendiary rhetoric.

“There are all kinds of hate groups that come to hotels where we have clients — you know, come and attack our work,” Thielman said. “It’s only going to accelerate, it’s going to get accelerated and it’s going to get even worse.”

This article was originally published in NBCNews. with