President Trump’s new midterms ad is racist, xenophobic and also false in its claim that Democrats let murderer Luis Bracamontes remain in the U.S.
The last time Bracamontes was let back into the country, it was during President George W. Bush’s tenure, not under Democrats. A few years later, he killed two Sacramento police officers.
The ad that Trump shared on Twitter claims:
“Democrats let him into our country. Democrats let him stay.”
It is outrageous what the Democrats are doing to our Country. Vote Republican now! https://t.co/0pWiwCHGbh pic.twitter.com/2crea9HF7G
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 31, 2018
The ad features Bracamontes, who is now serving time on death row at San Quentin State Prison for the 2014 murders, bragging in a California courtroom about his crime.
He came to the U.S. at age 16 in 1993, when Bill Clinton was president. He was first arrested in Phoenix in 1996 on deportable drug offenses related to marijuana possession.
“Bracamontes served his time in then-Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s tent-city jail, then was handed over to federal immigration agents and deported on June 3, 1997,” according to
The Sacramento Bee.
He found his way back to the U.S. because he was arrested on drug charges again in Phoenix in 1998.
Bracamontes was ”
then released ‘for reasons unknown’ by Arpaio’s office,” the newspaper reports.
Arpaio is a Republican, not a Democrat. He was actually convicted for his use of immigration patrols that focused on Latinos, but was
pardoned by Trump in August 2017.
After another arrest in 2001, when Bush was president, Bracamontes was again deported. He later returned to the U.S. and was married in 2002 in Maricopa County. Bush, still a Republican, was president at the time.
Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) slammed Trump’s ad Thursday on Twitter:
This is a sickening ad. Republicans everywhere should denounce it.
https://t.co/5sftOt57pI
— Jeff Flake (@JeffFlake)
November 1, 2018
Meanwhile, Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez said on CNN:
“This is distracting, divisive Donald at his worst. This is fear mongering.”
He continued, “His dog whistle of all dog whistles is immigration. This has been Donald Trump’s playbook for so long.”
