Presidential front-runner Donald Trump released a new television campaign ad earlier today that featured numerous people crossing a fence the narrator says is the “southern border”. Aside from being disingenuous about the actual situation at the U.S.-Mexican border, using this footage raises comparisons with the situation in Melilla which the Trump campaign might want to think twice about.
Advertisement
The mention of Trump’s plan to build a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border is paired with footage of what’s supposed to be Mexicans and other Latin Americans scrambling across the U.S.-Mexico border.
Footage of Trump announcing his proposal to bar Muslims surfaced last week in a recruitment video created by the al-Qaida-affiliated militant group, al-Shabab.
But the fact-checking site PolitiFact concluded Monday that the displayed footage is actually of a small Spanish enclave in Morocco.
‘So you can just take it any way you want, but it’s really merely a display of what a dumping ground is going to look like.
Trump communications director Hope Hicks clarified in a formal statement: “The use of this footage was intentional and selected to demonstrate the severe impact of an open border and the very real threat Americans face if we do not immediately build a wall and stop illegal immigration. The shift is due to several reasons, including slow economic recovery after the Great Recession that may have made the US less attractive, as well as stricter enforcement of USA immigration laws, particularly at the border”. “This was 1,000 percent on goal”.
Politifact stands by their “pants on fire” rating of the ad, maintaining that it’s misleading.
Advertisement
A controversial new ad by Donald Trump touches on everything from Islamic terrorism to stemming the flow of illegal immigration.
