Trump tries softer tone but reprises false migrant claims at Univision town hall

DORAL, Fla. — Donald Trump on Wednesday at times appeared to attempt a more measured tone on immigration, even as he reprised some false, alarmist attacks against migrants during a town hall that will be televised on the Spanish-language network Univision.

Trump has frequently warned of a migrant “invasion,” and he has used dehumanizing language to describe undocumented immigrants, including calling them “animals.” On Wednesday, he avoided those specific terms and voiced support for legal immigration in broad responses to some questions. But legal immigration rates fell when Trump was president, and he recently vowed to revoke temporary protected status for Haitians.

The appearance, coming less than three weeks before Election Day, showed the Republican presidential nominee in a different setting from the largely White rallies he often speaks at. This time, he was speaking to a broadcast audience that includes many Latino voters. The former president has over the years given conflicting views of his stances on major issues.

Trump faced questions from undecided Latino voters who asked him about a range of topics, including the cost of living, reproductive rights, climate change, his handling of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol and his loss of support from some officials who served in his administration.

Jorge Velázquez, a 64-year-old farmer, asked about who would do farm work if Trump deports undocumented immigrants and how much would food cost then. Most mainstream economists say his plan to deport millions of undocumented immigrants would probably send prices surging. Trump did not directly respond to the question, instead making a broader point about immigration.

“We want workers, and we want them to come in, but they have to come in legally. They have to love our country. They have to love you, love our people,” he said.

Trump responded to another question by mentioning that immigrants came to the United States during his administration, “but they were coming through a legal process. They were great people coming into our country.”

Still, Trump repeated his false claims that the Biden administration has released “hundreds of thousands of people that are murderers, drug dealers and terrorists.” On the campaign trail, Trump has distorted official Department of Homeland Security statistics on undocumented immigrants with homicide convictions, falsely claiming that the Biden administration “released” them when, in reality, the government numbers Trump is citing span decades and include people who are serving time in state and federal prisons.

At another point, José Saralegui, 67, an engineer and operations director, asked if Trump really believed his promotion of a false and racist trope that Haitian migrants are eating pets in Springfield, Ohio.

“This was just reported. I was just saying what was reported,” Trump said. “I’m going to be there and we’re going to take a look and I’ll give you a full report when I do.”

“I think you can’t just destroy our country,” he said as he elaborated on migrants, echoing his anti-immigrant rhetoric on the campaign trail.

Vice President Kamala Harris leads Trump among Hispanic voters, polls show. But her margins have concerned some Democrats. A recent New York Times-Siena poll found Harris leading Trump among Latino voters by 19 points, as she garnered 56 percent of Hispanic likely voters to Trump’s 37 percent. In 2020, exit polls showed Biden winning this group by 33 points, with 65 percent of Latinos backing him compared with 32 percent who voted for Trump.

That same poll found that Trump’s attacks on immigrants have not driven Latino voters to Harris. Roughly two-thirds of Hispanic respondents born in the United States said they do not feel Trump is referring to them when he speaks spoke about immigrants. More than half born in another country said the same thing.

Trump was not asked directly at Wednesday’s town hall about his proposal to stage the largest deportation operation in U.S. history — nor did he mention it in any of his responses.

The former president also referred to Jan. 6 — the day in 2021 that his supporters stormed the Capitol in a riot that turned deadly — as “a day of love” and said there was “nothing done wrong.” He was responding to a question from Ramiro González, a 56-year-old construction worker and self-described Republican, who said he was alarmed by what took place on Jan. 6, among other concerns with Trump, and wanted to give the former president the “opportunity to try to win back my vote.”

In recent weeks, the former president has suggested that “bad genes” are to blame for people in the country illegally who have committed murders and disparaged undocumented immigrants as “savage criminals” and “animals.” He has said they “poisoning the blood of our country” and his ads mentioning immigration frequently refer to migrants as “illegals.”

Trump on Wednesday repeated his claim that migrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border are taking jobs from the “African American population and the Hispanic population in particular” — a characterization that many Americans have found offensive and economists have said is false.

The town hall, billed as “Noticias Univision Presents: Latinos Ask, Donald Trump Responds,” was held at Univision Studios, roughly a mile away from Trump’s golf resort here, where he fielded questions before several dozen Hispanic voters from different parts of the country. It will air Wednesday night.

Trump’s participation in the town hall reflects a marked shift in his relationship with Univision, a network his campaign in 2020 referred to as “a leftist propaganda machine and a mouthpiece of the Democrat Party.” Univision’s approach to the former president has noticeably changed over the past year, as evidenced by an hour-long interview with him in 2023 that had a notably gracious tone and prompted swift backlash from Latino advocacy groups and Democrats.

On Tuesday night at a rally in Atlanta, Trump raised questions about Black and Latino voters backing Harris. The former president has repeatedly ridiculed and questioned the mental state of people in various demographic groups, including Jewish voters, if they aren’t voting for him.

“Any African American or Hispanic … that votes for Kamala, you got to have your head examined,” Trump said Tuesday. “Because they are really screwing you.”

The Harris campaign slammed Trump for his comments.

“If Donald Trump thinks insulting Black and Latino voters is the key to earning their respect and their votes, it’s him who should have his head examined,” Harris campaign spokesperson Sarafina Chitika said in a statement.