SAN DIEGO — Immigration advocacy leaders nationwide raised concerns Thursday that the rhetoric in the U.S. Presidential election could lead to violence against minority communities.
"Extreme rhetoric leads to extreme violence," said Vanessa Cardenas, Executive Director of America's Voice. "Extreme slogan, coded words like 'invasion,' or 'replacement' or 'biggest mass deportation in American history,' fosters fear and hate."
The Zoom call also included leaders from the Haitian Bridge Alliance, Center for American Progress, UnidosUS, National Urban League, Asian Law Caucus, and Bend The Arc: Jewish Action.
They said the false claims that Haitian migrants in Ohio are eating people's pets are creating fear that anti-immigrant sentiment is going to spread.
"This is a tactic as old as time," said Janet Murguia, President of UnidosUS. "De-humanizing, 'othering' people are the foundation of every unspeakable act against humanity in world history. This tactic is all too familiar to those who have lived through the darkest times in American history."
She pointed to the 2019 mass shooting at a Walmart in El Paso. A Texas man was sentenced to 90 consecutive life sentences.
According to the US Department of Justice, the shooter previously admitted that he killed and wounded people at the Walmart because of the actual and perceived national origin of the people he expected to be at the Walmart. In a manifesto he wrote, he characterized himself as a white nationalist, motivated to kill Hispanics because they were immigrating to the United States. He admitted to selecting El Paso, a border city, as his target to dissuade Mexican and other Hispanic immigrants from coming to the United States.
Aarti Kohli, Executive Director, Asian Law Caucus pointed to violence against Asian people in the US during the COVID-19 pandemic.
"They were scapegoated which has resulted in numerous incidents of violence, especially toward vulnerable women," said Kohli.
Cardenas said it's okay for politicians to have differing views on immigration policy, but she said the focus should center on policy.
Meanwhile, San Diego County Supervisor Jim Desmond testified in Washington D.C. Wednesday about the high number of migrants coming across the US-Mexico border into San Diego and the strain it's putting on local resources.
According to Desmond, from September 2023 to June 2024, over 155,000 adults—predominantly men aged 18 to 35—were dropped onto the streets of San Diego County after crossing the border illegally.
"San Diego County itself, we spent $6 million dollars to set up a migrant receiving center to assist those dropped here, to move them more quickly to other parts of the country. These were local dollars that could've been spent on roads, infrastructure and parks," testified Supervisor Desmond.