Trump ad slammed as‘divorced from reality’

U.S. President Donald Trump’s presidential campaign on Saturday issued a new video ad calling Democrats “complicit” in murders committed by illegal immigrants during a government shutdown partly triggered by an impasse over immigration.

The Trump campaign released the ad, titled “Complicit,” on the anniversary of the Republican president’s inauguration.

It focuses on an undocumented immigrant, Luis Bracamontes, charged in the 2014 killings of two police officers in Sacramento, Calif. The man’s lawyers had questioned his sanity but a judge found him mentally competent to stand trial, according to a report last week in the Sacramento Bee. “Democrats who stand in our way will be complicit in every murder committed by illegal immigrants,” the ad says.

“It’s a campaign ad, which tend to be extreme, but this is completely divorced from reality and full of fear and hate,” said Melanie Nezer, vice president of the refugee agency HIAS.

Trump filed for reelection the day he took office, an unusual move that has allowed him to begin campaigning long before the November 2020 election. Historically, incumbent presidents have waited two years, until after the midterm elections, to file formally.

The Dreamers were brought illegally into the United States as children, and given temporary legal status under a program started by former U.S. President Barack Obama.