A tough sounding political ad from President Trump that shows a Mexican immigrant bragging about killing police officers has put the spotlight back on noted immigration hard-liner Joe Arpaio, who detained and released the man in the video years ago.
The ad centers on Luis Bracamontes, who was convicted of murder in the 2014 shooting deaths of two sheriff’s deputies in California while he was in the United States illegally.
Trump blames Democrats for weak laws that allowed the man to keep coming across the border, even though he was deported during the administrations of Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.
It is outrageous what the Democrats are doing to our Country. Vote Republican now! https://t.co/0pWiwCHGbh pic.twitter.com/2crea9HF7G
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 31, 2018
Bracamontes was also incarcerated four times in jails run by Arpaio, a Republican who is known for his crackdowns on illegal immigration and being the first person to receive a pardon from Trump.
He campaigned for Trump on several occasions during the presidential campaign but lost his bid for a seventh term in 2016 amid a swirl of legal troubles.
Arpaio said Friday that he hasn’t seen the ad and didn’t remember the details of the cases.
Bracamontes was deported four times before he killed Sacramento County sheriff’s Deputy Danny Oliver and Placer County sheriff’s Detective Michael Davis Jr., according to Sacramento County Sheriff Scott Jones.
There is no evidence that any Democrat — or anyone, for that matter — allowed Bracamontes to stay.
Democratic and Republican administrations alike have deported hundreds of thousands of people a year.
Barack Obama focused during his second term on recent arrivals and people with criminal histories, but Trump quickly directed that anyone in the country illegally could be targeted.
Both Democrats and Republicans have denounced the ad, which links Bracamontes’ crimes to a caravan of Central American migrants moving through Mexico, as a racist campaign tactic.