Donald Trump Warns Getting Migrants Out Will Be a ‘Bloody Story’

Former President Donald Trump intensified his rhetoric on immigration on Saturday, warning that removing migrants from the United States would be a “bloody story” if he’s reelected in November.
Trump’s remarks were made during a campaign rally in Mosinee, Wisconsin, and align with the Republican National Committee’s newly released 2024 platform, which calls for aggressive immigration enforcement and mass deportations.
“And ya know getting them out will be a bloody story,” Trump told supporters on Saturday, referencing plans for large-scale removal of undocumented immigrants. “[They] should have never been allowed to come into our country. Nobody checked them.”
A video of the former president’s remarks were posted to X, formerly Twitter, by @KamalaHQ. The video currently has over 260,000 views.
Newsweek has contacted Trump’s campaign via email on Saturday for comment.
On July 15, the Republican National Committee published and formally adopted new immigration policy priorities during the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.
The document stated, “Republicans offer an aggressive plan to stop the open-border policies that have opened the floodgates to a tidal wave of illegal aliens, deadly drugs, and migrant crime.”
Key policy points in the platform included:
The platform promises to “restore every border policy of the Trump administration” and finish the border wall Trump began during his previous term. It also calls for strengthening U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), ramping up penalties for illegal entry and visa overstays, and reinstating Trump’s “Remain in Mexico” policy.
The 2024 platform uses more direct language compared to the 2016/2020 version, omitting conciliatory statements about immigrants’ contributions to the country.
This hardline stance is further reinforced by Trump’s pick for vice president, Ohio Senator JD Vance who has backed calls for mass deportation of illegal immigrants, despite unclear implementation plans.
At the Republican National Convention in Wisconsin, Vance echoed Trump’s rhetoric, stating, “We have to deport people, we have to deport people who broke our laws who came in here and I think we start with the violent criminals.”
Vance’s campaign has been even more explicit, with a fundraising message declaring, “We need to deport every single person who invaded our country illegally.” This aligns with Trump’s claim that between 15 and 20 million people could be deported under his plans, though official estimates put the number of undocumented migrants in the U.S. at around 11 million.
In his convention speech, Vance linked immigration to housing issues, stating, “Then the Democrats flooded this country with millions of illegal aliens. So citizens had to compete with people who shouldn’t even be here for precious housing.” However, data from the Migration Policy Institute shows that only about 28 percent of illegal immigrants own homes, compared to roughly 65 percent of American citizens.
Vance’s hardline stance is juxtaposed with his personal life. His wife, Usha, is the daughter of Indian immigrants, whom he praised for “enriching” the country. This has led to some criticism from extremist figures within Trump’s Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement, questioning the authenticity of his immigration views.
However, some Republican lawmakers have expressed doubts about the practicality of mass deportations. Representative Tony Gonzales, a Texas Republican who represents the largest stretch of the U.S.-Mexico border in Congress, previously told Newsweek, “You’re not going to round up 10 million people and deport them. It’s simple—you do not have the infrastructure to do that.”
The debate over immigration policy has intensified as both major parties seek to present contrasting visions ahead of the 2024 election. While Trump and the Republican National Committee advocate for a hardline approach, Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, has pledged to revive President Joe Biden’s failed bipartisan border security bill.
Recent data from the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse shows over 620,000 immigration court deportation cases were filed in fiscal year 2023, with around 236,000 resulting in removals. This surpasses the 187,000 removals that occurred during the peak of Trump’s administration in 2019.
Gonzales warned that completely shutting down the border would impact industries across the country, stating, “There’s not one industry that is not tied to the U.S.-Mexico border.”
With an estimated 11.3 million immigrants in the U.S. without legal status, addressing the immigration crisis will require balancing security concerns with humanitarian considerations and practical realities.