Unveils “zero tolerance” immigration speech portraying immigrants as “criminal aliens”

That night in Phoenix, Arizona, Trump delivered a fiery immigration speech that repeatedly described undocumented immigrants as “criminal aliens,” promised “zero tolerance” for them, and pledged to create a new “deportation task force” while insisting Mexico would pay for a border wall. The American Presidency Project transcript, NPR/KNKX and PBS fact-checks, and Roll Call’s recap document how he rolled out a ten-point plan that would expand deportations, dramatically increase immigration enforcement, and tie immigrants to crime with exaggerated claims about “countless Americans” killed by people who never should have been in the country. By pairing lurid anecdotes with sweeping rhetoric about “criminal aliens” and mass removals, he turned xenophobic stereotypes into a central campaign plank and framed draconian crackdowns as common sense protection against an invented crime wave.

"There will be zero tolerance for criminal aliens — zero, zero, zero." — August 31, 2016 campaign rally in Phoenix, Arizona, where Trump laid out a ten‑point immigration plan focused on building a wall, expanding deportations, and creating a new deportation task force while repeatedly referring to undocumented immigrants as “criminal aliens.”