By Ted Hesson and Alexandra Ulmer
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Minutes before he took the stage for the first presidential debate on Thursday, Donald Trump received a call from the mother of 12-year-old Jocelyn Nungaray, who was killed in Houston this month, allegedly by two Venezuelan men who were in the U.S. illegally. The mother, Alexis Nungaray, responded to a voicemail Trump had left earlier in the day while she was at her daughter’s funeral, a family friend, Victoria Galvan, who witnessed the call, told Reuters. Nungaray’s body was found in a creek near her home on June 17 after her attackers allegedly took her under a bridge, bound her, removed her pants and strangled her, according to police and prosecutors.
The suspects – Johan Jose Martinez Rangel, 22, and Franklin Jose Pena Ramos, 26 – were arrested by US border authorities in Texas earlier this year but were released pending a court date. During the debate, Trump spoke about Nungaray’s case and the call while Biden on his immigration policy and accused the Democrat of allowing murderers and rapists into the country. “Many young women have been murdered by the same people he allows to come across our border,” Trump said. “These murderers are coming into our country and raping and killing women. And that is a terrible thing.”
Citing Nungaray’s case, he said: “What has happened is horrific… We are now an uncivilized country in the truest sense of the word.”
Trump’s attacks are part of a well-worn maneuver he has used repeatedly since his first campaign in 2015 to portray immigrants who cross the southern border illegally as violent criminals. To get that message across, he typically focuses on young, mostly white women allegedly killed by Hispanic attackers, and avoids cases involving male victims. His opponents accuse him of cynically exploiting grieving families to bolster his narrative that foreign-born, often Hispanic, arrivals are part of an invading army.
“Part of what’s going on here is an attempt to stoke xenophobia, hatred or ethnic hostility,” said Christopher Federico, a professor of political science and psychology at the University of Minnesota. He added that Trump appears to appeal to racist stereotypes that portray Latino men as a threat to “the perceived purity of white femininity.”
Studies generally conclude that there is no evidence that immigrants commit crimes at higher rates than native-born Americans. Critics claim that Trump’s rhetoric reinforces racist stereotypes.
But polls show that this profound message resonates with many voters, amplified by conservative media, pro-Trump influencers online and sometimes the grieving relatives and friends of the women killed.
Galvan, 27, attributed Biden’s easing of some restrictions on the U.S.-Mexico border to Nungaray’s death.
“I think Jocelyn would definitely still be here if President Trump were our president,” Galvan said, adding that she plans to vote in a presidential election for the first time and would support Trump.
Despite a lack of evidence, about three-quarters of Republicans in a Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted in May said that migrants living illegally in the United States were “a threat to public safety.”
Worn game book
Trump has attacked Biden over the record number of illegal migrants at the US-Mexico border. Immigration is a major concern for voters, especially conservatives.
Biden has accused Trump of pushing Republicans earlier this year to block a bipartisan Senate bill aimed at tightening border security and has portrayed Trump’s policies as unnecessarily cruel.
“Donald Trump is exploiting the pain and loss of American families for the benefit of one person: Donald Trump,” Biden campaign spokesman Kevin Munoz said in a statement. “His sick and dehumanizing comments do nothing to make our border more secure and are beneath the dignity of the President of the United States.”
As part of an initiative by the conservative group Building America’s Future, a digital commercial addressing violent crime and criticizing Biden was launched last week in seven swing states.
The complaint focuses on Rachel Morin – a mother of five who was raped and killed while jogging near her Maryland home in August 2023 – and her alleged killer, an immigrant from El Salvador who had entered the United States illegally.
“Joe Biden’s open border, a nightmare for American women,” says a woman’s voice as the face of suspected murderer Morin is displayed next to Biden’s.
According to Susan Del Percio, a Republican strategist who has criticized Trump’s immigration rhetoric, Trump’s actions are reminiscent of the oft-quoted “Willie Horton” commercial that attacked Democratic presidential candidate Michael Dukakis during the 1988 presidential campaign.
Horton was black, and critics said the ad – which effectively supported the candidacy of Republican George HW Bush – was designed to stoke racial fears.
“Trump says, ‘We don’t like immigrants, and here’s another terrible reason not to like them. They will persecute you and kill you,'” she said.
Trump campaign spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said Biden’s border policies had allowed dangerous criminals to enter the United States and that Trump had tried to support the families of the victims.
“President Trump is calling their names, calling their mothers and standing by their families, while Joe Biden continues to ignore their suffering and welcome millions of dangerous, criminal, illegal immigrants,” Leavitt said in a statement.
Trump used inflammatory language to describe immigrants who are in the United States illegally, saying, among other things, that they are “poisoning the blood” of the country.
MIXED RECEPTION
Parents of some victims welcomed Trump’s efforts to publicize the brutal murders, while others accused him of simply trying to politicize the deaths of their relatives.
In 2018, Trump made the Mollie Tibbetts case public after the 20-year-old University of Iowa student was killed by a Mexican immigrant who had entered the United States illegally. However, Tibbetts’ father accused Trump at the time of exploiting the tragedy for political purposes.
Laura Calderwood, Tibbetts’ mother, told Reuters she believed her daughter’s killer was a disturbed person, but the murder had nothing to do with his immigration status.
“This was an anomaly,” said Calderwood, a Democrat who plans to vote for Biden. “There are a lot of illegal immigrants here, and they don’t go out and murder people.”
Michelle Root, whose daughter Sarah was killed in Nebraska in 2016 when her car was hit by a drunk driver while illegally driving in the United States, told Reuters that then-President Barack Obama and Vice President Biden never responded when she wrote to them to raise awareness of the case.
Neither Obama’s private office nor the White House responded to requests for comment.
Trump, then a presidential candidate, invited her to meet before a rally in Omaha, she said. The meeting convinced Root – a lifelong Democrat who voted twice for Obama – to support Trump.
She said he later called her and asked for permission to mention Sarah’s case when he accepted the Republican presidential nomination that summer.
“Without him, Sarah would have had no voice,” she said.
Patty Morin, Rachel Morin’s mother, was “incredibly touched” when Trump contacted her earlier this month to express his condolences, her lawyer Randolph Rice told Reuters.
“During the 20-minute phone call, the President asked about Rachel and her family and how they were doing,” Rice said in an email. “She still hasn’t heard from the Biden administration.”
(Reporting by Ted Hesson in Washington and Alexandra Ulmer in San Francisco; Editing by Ross Colvin, Kieran Murray and Daniel Wallis)
