Former President Donald Trump pledged to pay compensation to victims of crimes committed by migrants for their experiences.
Trump sees border security as the most important issue of the election and has used the crimes committed by migrants to attack the vice president Kamala Harris. He has vowed to secure the border if he becomes president and has used statements from victims of crimes committed by migrants to convince voters to vote for him.
Trump announced at a news conference Tuesday at Mar-a-Lago that he will seize the assets of gangs and drug cartels if he becomes president. These assets would then be used to establish a compensation fund to pay restitution to victims of crimes committed by migrants.
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“We will seize the assets of criminal gangs and drug cartels and we will use those assets to establish a compensation fund to reimburse victims of migrant crime,” Trump said.
Trump has focused much of his campaign rhetoric on immigration and border control, calling it the most important issue for voters this election cycle.
During his campaign, Trump promised to implement a mass deportation plan if he is re-elected. Trump policy advisor Stephen Miller promised a “100 percent” deportation rate at the border by bringing back the “remain in Mexico” policy and Title 42 restrictions used during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Migrant crossings at the US-Mexico border have increased dramatically in recent years, and immigration and border security have become a top issue for voters.
On Tuesday, Tammy Nobles spoke at Trump’s press conference at Mar-a-Lago about her 20-year-old daughter Kayla Hamilton, who was raped and murdered by an MS-13 gang member.
“Homeland security did not do their job. Health and human services have not done their job. The Biden-Harris administration has not done their job,” Nobles said. “If they had done their job, made that one phone call to El Salvador, my daughter would still be alive today.”
Hamilton, who was autistic, was strangled in 2022. Nobles filed a $100 million lawsuit against the federal government earlier this year for playing “Russian roulette with our lives.”
Trump’s campaign has focused on several victims killed by undocumented immigrants. The campaign recently pointed this out Laken Riley and her killer, Jose Ibarra.
Trump and others Republicans have attacked the Biden administration for releasing the Riley murder suspect on parole after he was originally detained.
Riley, a nursing student attending Augusta University in Georgia, was killed during a flight in February. The suspect, Jose Antonio Ibarrais an undocumented Venezuelan migrant who was released on parole to the US due to detention capacity, according to DHS.
Other high-profile crimes that have been brought to the forefront of the national conversation include the murder of 12-year-old Houston girl Jocelyn Nungaray and the rise of the Tren De Aragua crime syndicate.
“President Trump will secure the border and end capture and release,” the campaign said in a press release earlier this month. “This is why he was just endorsed by the Border Patrol Union.”
A YouGov survey of 1,130 U.S. adults, including 990 registered voters, conducted online between September 19 and 22, 2024, found that both Harris and Trump voters support tougher measures on tackling transnational criminal gangs.
According to Gallup, 55 percent of voters are — including nearly 30 percent of voters Democrats—I want to see new restrictions on immigrationthe highest recorded figure since 2001, showing a shift in public attitudes towards immigration.
Update 10/29/24 12:15 PM ET: This story has been updated with more information.