The widows of two police officers the Mexican immigrant murdered were invited to President Donald Trump’s 2017 address to Congress.<\/b>
\nWASHINGTON \u2014 The widows of two police officers the Mexican immigrant murdered were invited to President Donald Trump\u2019s 2017 address to Congress. The conservative Breitbart News faithfully chronicled his conviction and death sentence. His snarling, expletive-filled rant about killing police officers appeared in a little-noticed January 2018 Trump campaign ad.
Now, Luis Bracamontes\u2019 menacing smile has abruptly taken a central role in Trump\u2019s closing midterm election argument about immigration as the president tweeted out a video of the Latino man\u2019s courtroom appearance in what was immediately denounced by some Democrats and Republicans as a racist campaign tactic.
Bracamontes, an immigrant living in the country illegally, sports a shaved head and long chin hair and speaks in accented English in the video, and his words are clear: He\u2019s killed cops and he\u2019s \u201cgonna kill more cops soon.\u201d
The video, which Trump tweeted late Wednesday, alleges without evidence that Democrats were responsible for allowing Bracamontes into the U. S. It comes amid a frenzy of hardline immigration proposals pushed out by Trump in the final stages of the campaign, including sending troops to the border and revoking birthright citizenship.
Bracamontes, a twice-deported immigrant from Mexico, was sentenced to death in California for the 2014 killings. The 53-second video includes expletives uttered by Bracamontes during his trial as he professed regret at not killing more officers.
\u201cIllegal immigrant, Luis Bracamontes, killed our people!,\u201d the video states, adding, \u201cDemocrats let him into our country\u2026 Democrats let him stay.\u201d It includes scenes of a migrant caravan moving toward the U. S., warning ominously, \u201cWho else would Democrats let in?\u201d and suggesting that more violence would soon penetrate the border.
The ad was reminiscent of the infamous \u201cWillie Horton\u201d ad used against Democratic presidential candidate Michael Dukakis in 1988 and condemned as racist. Horton, who was black, raped a woman while out of prison on a weekend furlough. As Massachusetts governor, Dukakis supported the furlough program. Dukakis went on to lose to Republican George H. W. Bush.
The video tweeted by Trump did not immediately appear to be running on television \u2014 it has a runtime longer than most TV ads \u2014 although it received extensive coverage on cable news networks. As of Thursday afternoon, it had received 3.51 million views in less than 24 hours and was the \u201cpinned\u201d tweet atop Trump\u2019s profile, meaning it was the first thing any visitor to his Twitter page would see.
The White House and the Trump campaign did not immediately respond to requests for comments as to who made or paid for the video or if any tax dollars were used to run it from the president\u2019s account.
\u201cThis is a sickening ad. Republicans everywhere should denounce it,\u201d said Republican Sen. Jeff Flake of Arizona, a frequent Trump critic. And Rep. Carlos Curbelo, R-Fla., seeking re-election in a Democratic-leaning South Florida district, said he\u2019d not seen the video but criticized Trump\u2019s use of it.
\u201cI can tell you that it\u2019s definitely part of a divide-and-conquer strategy that a lot of politicians, including the president, have used successfully in the past,\u201d Curbelo said Thursday on CNN. \u201cI hope this doesn\u2019t work.\u201d
Tom Perez, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, called the new ad the \u201cdog whistle of all dog whistles.\u201d
\u201cThis is distracting, divisive Donald at his worst,\u201d Perez said on CNN. \u201cThis is fearmongering.\u201d
The dark video stood in stark contrast to an ad circulated by the Trump campaign earlier in the week that highlighted rosy economic numbers and depicted gauzy scenes of American suburban life. That ad was part of a blitz by Trump\u2019s campaign, and his campaign manager, Brad Parscale, did several interviews to promote it.
As for the new video, though, the campaign was silent Thursday and Parscale did not respond to requests for comment.
But the Trump campaign was behind the January 2018 video, released on its YouTube page, that featured Bracamontes\u2019s courtroom appearance. That video was timed to the one-year anniversary of Trump\u2019s inauguration and meant to promote his immigration agenda.
The previous year, Jessica Davis and Susan Oliver, the widows of Detective Michael Davis and Deputy Sheriff Danny Oliver, were invited to Trump\u2019s address to Congress. Bracamontes\u2019 case \u2014 he was sentenced to death in March \u2014 also received steady coverage on Breitbart and other right-wing news sites.
Trump has long promoted the alleged danger presented by those living in the country illegally, although statistics show they do not commit crimes at a higher rate than citizens. During his 2016 campaign, he frequently appeared with so-called \u201cangel families\u201d \u2014 those who lost loved ones at the hands of immigrants in the nation illegally.<\/p>\n

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