President Trump tweeted out a video on Wednesday designed to gin up fears of illegal immigration prior to the midterm elections. The spot, which drew comparisons to the infamous Willie Horton ad for its bigoted undertones, featured Luis Bracamontes, an undocumented immigrant who has been convicted and sentenced to death for murdering two deputies in Sacramento, California:
“Democrats Let him stay!” the ad declares.
And: “It is outrageous what the Democrats are doing to our Country. Vote Republican now!”
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Except, that’s not the story.
Bracamontes was first deported to his native Mexico in 1997, during the Clinton administration, after he was busted selling drugs. But, according to U.S. Immigration officials, Bracamontes managed return to the United States by 2001, when he was deported a second time for being in the country illegally. That was during the first year of the Bush administration.
Bracamontes was back in America again by 2002. He married a U.S. citizen and remained in the country even as the Bush administration deported people at a record rate, topped only by the Obama administration.
When Bracamontes shot and killed the two deputies in 2014, he had been deported once under a Democratic administration and once under a Republican administration. He had been back in the United States for at least six years during the Bush administration and five years under the Obama administration.
Trump’s video also fails to mention that Bracamontes murdered the deputies with an AR-15 assault rifle, which both he and the Republicans have long resisted banning.
The AR-15 has been the weapon of choice for high-profile mass shooters. It was used by the maniac who murdered 11 people in a synagogue in Pittsburgh this past weekend. He was a native born American and, unlike Bracamontes, was not featured in any Trump video or tweet.
