Donald Trump is traveling on Friday to take him to California, a state which has promised to lead resistance against him, while the White House stages expulsions of irregular migrants.
During this trip devoted to recent natural disasters, a hurricane which ravaged North Carolina in October and the fires in Los Angeles, the Republican once again signaled his intention to very tightly control federal aid intended for the states.
“We are taking out the worst criminals” in the country, assured the American president, without further details, in Asheville (North Carolina), his first stop.
The White House boasted of having launched “the largest mass expulsion operation in history”. “The Trump administration has arrested 538 illegal criminal migrants,” its spokesperson Karoline Leavitt announced on X, adding that “hundreds” had been deported, using army planes for the first time.
The Pentagon confirmed that two military planes took migrants to Guatemala.
“It’s a pure propaganda operation,” said Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, expert from the American Immigration Council, on X.
During the 2024 fiscal year (October to the end of September), under President Joe Biden, Border Patrol expelled 271,000 undocumented migrants, an average of 742 people per day.
The Republican president promised to expel a total of “millions” of people.
Abortion
Donald Trump, who is making his first trip on Friday since his inauguration on Monday, will therefore not go in person on Friday to the big annual march of abortion opponents in Washington.
The septuagenarian, who was the first sitting president to participate in this gathering in 2020, however recorded a video message for the demonstrators, according to the White House.
With North Carolina and California, he chose two states hit by natural disasters that the Republican leader uses to attack his Democratic opponents.
The billionaire, who wants to tightly control the distribution of federal aid in the event of natural disasters, suggested Friday that he would “perhaps eliminate” FEMA, the federal agency for responding to hurricanes, fires and other disasters.
-He also said that any additional aid for North Carolina or California would “go through us,” and “not through FEMA.”
His attacks against this organization gained momentum in particular during the last electoral campaign, when he seized on the devastation of Hurricane Helen to criticize Democratic President Joe Biden and FEMA for having voluntarily neglected areas victims because they voted Republican.
Donald Trump, however, has never provided evidence for these accusations.
As for California, he threatens to call into question federal aid, ensuring that the Democratic authorities have cut off the water supplying fire-fighting systems, assertions denied by experts.
He said he also wanted to address the electoral rules in this large Democratic state during his trip.
“I want two things in Los Angeles. I want proof of identity for voters and I want the water to be released,” he said.
Last August the president, who regularly assures that the electoral system would be “rigged” against him, affirmed that “if Jesus counted the votes” he could win in California.
In November, Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris unsurprisingly won the state, even though Donald Trump made gains there.
According to the press, the president will be greeted when he gets off the plane in Los Angeles, as is customary, by the governor of the state, Gavin Newsom.
This hope of the Democratic Party is one of the Republican’s favorite targets.
The governor has positioned himself as one of the great leaders of the opposition against Donald Trump. He wishes to “defend (the) Constitution and uphold the rule of law”.
