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      Contested state supreme court seats are site of hidden battle for abortion access

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      Abortion will be on the ballot in 10 states on Tuesday, and it’s one of the top issues in the presidential contest between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump. But it is also key to less publicized but increasingly contested races for seats on state supreme courts, which often have the last word on whether a state will ban or protect access to the procedure.This year, voters in 33 states have the chance to decide who sits on their state supreme courts. Judges will be on the ballot in Arizona and Florida, where supreme courts have recently ruled to uphold abortion bans. They are also up for election in Montana, where the supreme court has backed abortion rights in the face of a deeply abortion-hostile state legislature.In addition, supreme court judges are on the ballot in Maryland, Nebraska and Nevada – all of which are holding votes on measures that could enshrine access to abortion in their state constitutions. Should those measures pass, state supreme courts will almost certainly determine how to interpret them.Indeed, anti-abortion groups are already gearing up for lawsuits.“We’re all going to end up in court, because they’re going to take vague language from these ballot initiatives to ask for specific things like funding for all abortions, abortion for minors without parental consent,” said Kristi Hamrick, chief media and policy strategist for the powerful anti-abortion group Students for Life of America, which is currently campaigning around state supreme court races in Arizona and Oklahoma. “Judges have become a very big, important step in how abortion law is actually realized.”In Michigan and Ohio, which voted in 2022 and 2023 respectively to amend their state constitution to include abortion rights, advocates are still fighting in court over whether those amendments can be used to strike down abortion restrictions. Come November, however, the ideological makeup of both courts may flip.Spending in state supreme court races has surged since Roe fell. In the 2021-2022 election cycle, candidates, interest groups and political parties spent more than $100m, according to the Brennan Center for Justice. After adjusting for inflation, that’s almost double the amount spent in any previous midterm cycle.View image in fullscreenIn 2023, a race for a single seat on the Wisconsin supreme court alone cost $51m – and hinged on abortion rights, as the liberal-leaning candidate talked up her support for the procedure. (As in many other – but not all – state supreme court races, the candidates in Wisconsin were technically non-partisan.) After that election, liberals assumed a 4-3 majority on the Wisconsin supreme court. The court is now set to hear a case involving the state’s 19th-century abortion ban, which is not currently being enforced but is still on the books.It’s too early to tally up the money that has been dumped into these races this year, especially because much of it is usually spent in the final days of the election. But the spending is all but guaranteed to shatter records.In May, the National Democratic Redistricting Committee and Planned Parenthood Votes announced that they were teaming up this cycle to devote $5m to ads, canvassing and get-out-the-vote efforts in supreme court races in Arizona, Michigan, Montana, North Carolina, Ohio and Texas. Meanwhile, the ACLU and its Pac, the ACLU Voter Education Fund, has this year spent $5.4m on non-partisan advertising and door-knocking efforts in supreme court races in Michigan, Montana, North Carolina and Ohio. The scale of these investments was unprecedented for both Planned Parenthood and the ACLU, according to Douglas Keith, a senior counsel in the Brennan Center for Justice’s Judiciary Program who tracks supreme court races.

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      “For a long time, judicial campaign ads often were just judges saying that they were fair and independent and had family values, and that was about it. Now, you’re seeing judges talk about abortion rights or voting rights or environmental rights in their campaign ads,” Keith said. By contrast, rightwing judicial candidates are largely avoiding talk of abortion, Keith said, as the issue has become ballot box poison for Republicans in the years since Roe fell. Still, the Judicial Fairness Initiative, the court-focused arm of the Republican State Leadership Committee, announced in August that it would make a “seven-figure investment” in judicial races in Arizona, Michigan, Montana, North Carolina, Ohio and Texas.Balancing the federal benchAbortion is far from the only issue over which state courts hold enormous sway. They also play a key role in redistricting, LGBTQ+ rights, voting rights and more. And with the US Congress so gridlocked, state-level legislation and its legality has only grown in importance.For years, conservative operatives have focused on remaking the federal judiciary in their ideological image – an effort that culminated in Donald Trump’s appointments of three US supreme court justices and has made federal courts generally more hostile to progressive causes. Now, the ACLU hopes to make state supreme courts into what Deirdre Schifeling, its chief political and advocacy officer, calls a “counterbalance” to this federal bench.“We have a plan through 2030 to work to build a more representative court,” said Schifeling, who has a spreadsheet of the supreme court races that will take place across eight states for years to come. (As a non-partisan organization, the ACLU focuses on voter education and candidates’ “civil rights and civil liberties” records.) This cycle, the organization’s messaging has centered on abortion.“Nationally, you’re seeing polling that shows the top thing that voters are voting on is the economy. But these judges don’t really influence the economy,” Schifeling said. “Of the issues that they can actually influence and have power over, reproductive rights is by far the most important to voters.”Abortion rights supporters are testing out this strategy even in some of the United States’ most anti-abortion states. In Texas, where ProPublica this week reported two women died after being denied emergency care due to the state’s abortion ban, former US air force undersecretary Gina Ortiz Jones has launched the Find Out Pac, which aims to unseat three state supreme court justices.Justices Jane Bland, Jimmy Blacklock and John Devine, the Pac has declared, “fucked around with our reproductive freedom” in cases upholding Texas’s abortion restrictions. Now, Jones wants them out.“Why would we not try to hold some folks accountable?” Jones said. “This is the most direct way in which Texas voters can have their voices heard on this issue.” (There is no way for citizens to initiate a ballot measure in Texas.) The Pac has been running digital ads statewide on how the Texas ban has imperiled access to medically necessary care.However, since state supreme court races have long languished in relative obscurity, voters don’t always know much about them and may very well default to voting on party lines in the seven states where the ballots list the affiliations of nominees for the bench. Although the majority of Texans believe abortions should be legal in all or some cases, nearly half of Texans don’t recall seeing or hearing anything about their supreme court in the last year, according to Find Out Pac’s own polling.“This conversation that we’re having in Texas, around the importance of judicial races, is new for us as Democrats,” Jones said. “It’s not for the Republicans.” More

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      Lil Durk Is Accused of Conspiring to Kill a Rival. What We Know About the Case.

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      The rapper Lil Durk was arrested at the airport in Miami this week after he had been booked on flights to three international destinations, federal prosecutors said.The Grammy-winning rapper Lil Durk was arrested on a federal charge near Miami International Airport on Thursday over accusations that he conspired to kill a rap rival, resulting in the fatal shooting of another person.Lil Durk put out a bounty on the life of another rapper, identified only as T.B. by prosecutors, as retaliation for the 2020 killing of the rapper King Von, a member of the hip-hop collective Only the Family, which Lil Durk founded, according to the federal criminal complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California.An F.B.I. affidavit also says that Lil Durk had been booked on at least three international flights that were leaving on Thursday — to Italy, Switzerland and the United Arab Emirates — in an attempt to flee the United States.Lil Durk, 32, whose legal name is Durk Banks, appeared in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida on Friday. He remained in federal custody and was expected to be arraigned in Los Angeles in the coming weeks, according to prosecutors. He was charged with conspiracy to use interstate facilities to commit murder for hire resulting in death.The news of his arrest comes weeks before the scheduled release of his new album, “Deep Thoughts,” on Nov. 22. Earlier this year, he won a Grammy Award for Best Melodic Rap Performance for his song “All My Life,” featuring J. Cole.Representatives for Lil Durk had not responded to a request for comment.Here’s what we know about the case so far:Lil Durk is alleged to have co-conspirators.Lil Durk’s arrest comes on the heels of a recently unveiled federal indictment in Los Angeles charging five other men affiliated with Only the Family, or O.T.F., with the murder-for-hire plot, alleging that they conspired to “track, stalk, and attempt to kill” a rapper identified as T.B. We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ‘We can win Florida’: Harris’s husband Doug Emhoff rallies for VP in red state

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      In terms of presidential elections at least, Florida has fallen a long way since its heady days as the ultimate swing state. Seven cycles on from the 537-vote cliffhanger in 2000 that was finally resolved when the US supreme court placed George Bush in the White House, Florida is so reliably red, and Donald Trump so confident of picking up its 30 electoral college votes, that he has barely campaigned here.For the same reason, the Sunshine state has not featured on Kamala Harris’s schedule either. So some eyebrows were raised when second gentleman Doug Emhoff, the vice-president’s husband, rolled up on Wednesday to rally Democrats in Fort Lauderdale and Miami, on a break from stumping in the battleground states of the north-east.Publicly, at least, Emhoff believes the state is still in play. “We can win Florida. We should win Florida!” he told a lively gathering of supporters at a Get Out the Early Vote rally at the OB Johnson Center in Hallandale Beach, a Fort Lauderdale suburb in the Democratic stronghold of Broward county.Polling would suggest otherwise: Trump leads Harris by about six points in the latest FiveThirtyEight.com average in a state he won handily in both 2016 and 2020.But even under the specter of a Florida defeat in the presidential contest, Democrats at the national and state levels see extra value in his visit because of a tighter US senate race in Florida between incumbent Republican Rick Scott and his Democratic challenger, former representative Debbie Mucarsel-Powell.Much of the sparring in that contest has been over women’s healthcare rights, and especially Amendment 4, the ballot initiative that will overturn Florida’s draconian six-week abortion ban if approved by a 60% majority.It’s an issue that has caused outrage among advocates largely because of ultra-conservative Florida governor Ron DeSantis’s efforts to interfere. He has been accused of sending law enforcement to the homes of people who signed a petition in support, illegally spending taxpayers’ money on TV ads opposing it, and threatening legal action against networks that broadcast ads supporting it.Emhoff, unsurprisingly, had thoughts. Attacking Trump as the architect of the downfall of Roe v Wade, he said: “Make no mistake, Donald Trump is no friend to women. He has proven himself to be a threat to women. Now he claims to be a friend to women. Would he protect you? Of course not. Trump is proud of it. He brags about stripping away Roe v Wade.”His comments prompted chants of: “Yes on 4!”Mucarsel-Powell was among the speakers and also addressed it. “I will protect healthcare and people with pre-existing conditions. I will stand for women, and children, to make sure we protect them against the attacks on their reproductive freedom,” she said.

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      Also on Emhoff’s agenda was gun violence, the economy and immigration, as well as the Republicans’ extremist Project 2025 agenda. He laid out how Harris would address these issues from the White House, and expressed disappointment that polling, less than two weeks from election day, showed a tightening race.“It shouldn’t be this close,” he said.Some had thought the back-to-back hurricanes, Helene and Milton, that ravaged parts of Florida in recent weeks would be addressed. Harris had sparred with DeSantis over the storms, with the governor reportedly refusing to take her calls because, he said, they “seemed political”.But Emhoff did cover a number of other familiar recent Democratic talking points in his half-hour speech, including Trump’s reported admiration for Adolf Hitler’s military generals, which, as he pointed out, Harris addressed earlier Wednesday.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“We really need to listen to what Donald Trump is saying, what’s coming out of his mouth. We lived through it when he was president. Somehow we got through it. This time around, he poses an even greater threat – to the economy, to women, and our very lives,” he said.“We can’t look away from this. This is as real as it gets. This is right in front of our faces. He’s completely unfit, unhinged and un-American. We need to turn the page on this chapter of American history.”He also referred to Trump’s “weird” references to Arnold Palmer, and the size of his genitalia. “What is that?” Emhoff said.Following his address in Hallandale, Emhoff headed for a Wednesday night rally and fundraiser in Coral Gablers, Miami, close to where Trump spoke directly to Latino voters earlier this week. Both sides are desperately courting south Florida’s sizeable Hispanic community in the final stages of the race.Supporters speaking before the Hallandale Beach event welcomed Emhoff’s visit. Democratic voter Anthony Hill, of Lauderdale Lakes, said it showed Democrats had not given up on Florida.“Every weekend, the Trump supporters are out here on street corners with their flags. It gets depressing,” he said. “I don’t think Kamala is going to win here, but if we can win some of the down-ballot races we can show that we’re still alive.” More

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      Trump ‘roundtable’ in Miami packed with pre-screened ultra-loyalist Latinos

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      It was billed as a roundtable discussion with Latino leaders, but the reality of Donald Trump’s appearance at his Doral golf club in Miami on Tuesday was a succession of adulatory monologues from his most loyal Latino supporters, interspersed with familiar, lengthy rants from the former president laden with grievances and insults.Little of the conversation, such as it was, related to issues directly affecting Latino voters, with whom Trump falsely claimed he was leading in the polls despite significant evidence to the contrary.His remarks about immigration, for example, were largely limited to baseless and often-aired claims that foreign countries, especially Venezuela, were opening their prisons to send “violent gang members” and drug dealers into the US with military weapons.And, his comments addressed to the many business owners and leaders present were distinctly light on policy, apart from a promise to maintain the generous tax cuts from his first term in office.“We gave you the biggest cut in taxes in the history of the country,” he said. “We have a great foundation to build on so we have a lot of companies coming in very fast.”Trump trails Harris in all battleground states among Latinos, a poll for Voto Latino published Monday and cited by the Hill, found, while the most recent AS/COA poll tracker shows a 56-31 preference for Harris nationally among the 36 million eligible Latino voters.Still, there is evidence Trump has been gaining ground, with the Democratic edge among Latino voters at its lowest level in four presidential election cycles, according to NBC News polling.Perhaps with this in mind, Trump was directly appealing to the Latino bloc for the second time in less than a week at Tuesday’s roundtable.“We’re going to talk about what’s happening with the election. We’ll take some questions from the fake news,” he said after a raucous welcome to the stage.Ultimately, he took none, ensuring he would avoid a repeat of his misfire at a town hall hosted by Univision, the largest US Spanish-language network, in Miami last Thursday when he mostly dodged awkward questions about immigration from undecided voters. At that event, he repeated debunked claims that Haitians in Springfield, Ohio, were eating pets and “other things too that they’re not supposed to”.Tuesday’s audience, a gallery of pre-screened ultra-loyalists at Trump National Doral, appeared unconcerned by the lack of a dialogue, cheering loudly at every insult. Trump called Kamala Harris, his Democratic opponent in the 5 November election, “a stupid person” as he falsely labeled her Joe Biden’s “border tsar” during a brief section on immigration.His remarks segued quickly into an attack on Democrats for allegedly allowing transgender athletes to play women’s sports, and he told a somewhat fanciful tale of “a man who transitioned into, congratulations, a woman” smashing a baseball so hard it hit a female player on the head and “these young ladies said they’d never seen anything like it”.Calling Harris a “radical-left lunatic”, he added: “There’s a sickness going on in our country. We have to end the sickness.”Perhaps sensing things were going off-topic, event host Jennifer Korn, a former White House aide and executive director of the Hispanic Leadership Network, attempted to interrupt with a: “Mr President … ”“I just want to leave it at that,” Trump said. “Would anybody else like to say anything?”Robert Unanue, the president of Goya Foods, the largest Latino-owned food company in the US, and a longtime vocal cheerleader of the former president and his lies that the 2020 election was stolen, stepped up to take the microphone and deliver a lengthy speech praising Trump.“I can’t believe your courage, your fight, and I know why you’re doing this. You’re not doing it for anything, but because you love this country. You love us, and we love you,” he said.“The other side of loving and building and creating is hating and destroying and dividing, and that’s what’s happened. We have become from the land of opportunity the land of exploitation, and the exploiter-in-chief is Kamala Harris and this administration.”Unanue was not the only Latino business figure heaping praise. Joel Garza, owner of multiple Sonic fast-food franchises and another veteran of the Trump podium, said the former president needed to be re-elected to “help us with banks [and] stop regulations”.“The last three-and-a-half years, the worst years for businesses, inflation, interest rates, with banks, prices, everything, is nothing compared to 2017 to 2020 when you were at the White House,” Garza said.The ultimate adulation, however, came at the conclusion of the roundtable when a group of religious leaders stood around Trump, who was seated at the table, eyes closed, with their hands on his shoulders.“We lift up the man that we believe you’ve put your hand upon to help restore America and bring America back to the place that honors you,” Ramiro Peña, one of Trump’s most influential Latino evangelists, said in a direct appeal to the heavens.Honduran televangelist Guillermo Maldonado, founder of Miami megachurch the King Jesus International Ministry, closed out the event with a prediction Trump would defeat Harris because “there’s a higher assignment for him to finish with this nation”.“This is a war between good and evil,” he insisted. “God sets up kings. He removes kings. We’re going to pray for the will of God to make [Trump] the 47th president.” More

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      A Crack, a Shift, Then Screams: Witnesses Describe Georgia Dock Collapse That Killed 7

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      Investigators have begun looking for reasons behind the failure at a ferry dock on Sapelo Island, the site of a festival celebrating the heritage of descendants of enslaved people. They had come to Sapelo Island, just off the curve of the Georgia coast, for a celebration of resilience, of a people, of a culture that for generations had been so fragile but could not be broken.The smell of smoked mullet drifted. Vendors sold red peas and rice. Performers onstage presented poetry and sang African spirituals.By midafternoon on Saturday, dozens readied for the trip back to the mainland, a route beginning with a ferry known as the Annemarie waiting at the end of the floating dock in the marsh. But then, a strange cracking noise. The walkway to the dock suddenly shifted. Then it collapsed.“Everyone’s falling into the water, and you’re hearing screams,” said Michael Wood, 43, who had been waiting in line to board.On Sunday, members of the tight-knit Gullah Geechee community, descendants of formerly enslaved people in the Southeast, who had gathered for a festival celebrating their heritage, mourned four women and three men, all of them older than 70, who were killed. And officials began investigating how a short journey to the only way off the Georgia island could have led to such tragedy.“The initial findings of our investigation at this point showed a catastrophic failure of the gangway, causing it to collapse,” said Walter Rabon, the commissioner of the Georgia Department of Natural Resources, adding that investigators and engineers will be gathering evidence and interviewing witnesses. Three people were also injured and remain hospitalized in critical condition. We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Judge slaps down Florida effort to ban abortion ad: ‘It’s the first amendment, stupid’

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      Florida’s health department can’t block a TV advertisement in support of a ballot measure that would protect abortion rights, a federal judge ruled on Thursday, after the department sent letters to local TV stations commanding them to stop airing the ad or risk criminal consequences.“The government cannot excuse its indirect censorship of political speech simply by declaring the disfavored speech is ‘false’,” US district judge Mark E Walker wrote in his ruling. “To keep it simple for the State of Florida: it’s the First Amendment, stupid.”Florida is one of 10 states set to vote on abortion-related ballot measures in November. If enacted, Florida’s measure would enshrine abortion rights into the state constitution and roll back the state’s six-week ban on the procedure, which took effect in May.Earlier this month, Florida’s health department sent cease-and-desist letters to TV stations running an ad by Floridians Protecting Freedom, the campaign behind the measure. In the ad, a woman named Caroline speaks about being diagnosed with cancer while pregnant.“The doctors knew if I did not end my pregnancy, I would lose my baby, I would lose my life and my daughter would lose her mom,” Caroline says in the ad. “Florida has now banned abortion even in cases like mine.”The letters said the claim that women can’t get life-saving abortions in Florida was “categorically false”, since Florida’s ban permits abortions in medical emergencies. “The fact is these ads are unequivocally false and detrimental to public health in Florida,” Jae Williams, the Florida department of health communications director, said in an email late on Thursday.However, doctors across the country have said abortion bans are worded so vaguely as to force them to deny people medically necessary abortions. A New York doctor recently said that she had treated a woman with an ectopic pregnancy – which is nonviable and potentially life-threatening if left untreated – who had been turned away from a Florida hospital.In response to the letters, Floridians Protecting Freedom sued the Florida surgeon general, Joseph Ladapo, and John Wilson, the former general counsel for the state health department. At least one TV station stopped airing the ad, the coalition’s lawsuit alleged.On Thursday, Walker granted a temporary restraining order blocking Ladapo from taking any further action against broadcasters or other media outlets that might air ads by Floridians Protecting Freedom.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“Of course, the surgeon general of Florida has the right to advocate for his own position on a ballot measure,” Walker wrote. “But it would subvert the rule of law to permit the state to transform its own advocacy into the direct suppression of protected political speech.”Over the last several weeks, Florida’s government, run by Ron DeSantis, the Republican governor, has sent law enforcement officials to investigate people who signed a petition to get the measure on the ballot, set up a webpage urging people not to vote for it, and issued a report suggesting the measure got on the ballot due to “a large number of forged signatures or fraudulent petitions”. Floridians Protecting Freedom has denied wrongdoing.Anti-abortion activists have since filed a lawsuit to remove the measure from the ballot or nullify votes cast for it. More

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      Judge Orders DeSantis Administration to Stop Threats Over Abortion-Rights Ad

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      The administration of Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida must stop threatening television stations with criminal prosecution for airing a political ad in favor of enshrining abortion rights in the state’s Constitution, a federal judge ordered on Thursday.Judge Mark E. Walker of the Federal District Court in Tallahassee ruled in a temporary restraining order that the threats by the Florida Department of Health to stations across the state likely amounted to “unconstitutional coercion” and “viewpoint discrimination.”“The government cannot excuse its indirect censorship of political speech simply by declaring the disfavored speech is ‘false,’” Judge Walker, who has frequently ruled against the administration, wrote in his 17-page order. “To keep it simple for the state of Florida: it’s the First Amendment, stupid.”The order followed an emergency hearing on Thursday after Floridians Protecting Freedom, the organization behind a campaign for an abortion-rights ballot measure known as Amendment 4, sued on Wednesday.This month, the state’s health department sent several television stations a cease-and-desist letter urging them to stop airing an ad, titled “Caroline,” that is part of the “Yes on 4” campaign. It features a woman named Caroline Williams discussing how she had been diagnosed with stage four brain cancer when she was 20 weeks pregnant.“Florida has now banned abortion even in cases like mine,” Ms. Williams says in the ad.The state called the ad “false.” At least one station stopped airing the ad after receiving the department’s letter, the suit said.“This critical initial victory is a triumph for every Floridian who believes in democracy and the sanctity of the First Amendment,” Lauren Brenzel, the director of the “Yes on 4” campaign, said in a statement on Thursday. “The court has affirmed what we’ve known all along: The government cannot silence the truth about Florida’s extreme abortion ban.”Mr. DeSantis has vowed to defeat Amendment 4 and has leveraged the power of the state to oppose the measure, leading to several legal challenges. The courts had declined to intervene in prior cases.Julia Friedland, Mr. DeSantis’s deputy press secretary, said in a statement that Judge Walker had “issued another order that excites the press.”“The ads are unequivocally false and put the lives and health of pregnant women at risk,” she said. “Florida’s heartbeat protection law always protects the life of a mother and includes exceptions for victims of rape, incest, and human trafficking.”The campaign is seeking a preliminary injunction against the state. Judge Walker scheduled a hearing for Oct. 29.A separate lawsuit, filed by opponents of Amendment 4 and seeking to toss the measure from the ballot, is pending in state court. More

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      Trump stands by debunked claims immigrants are eating pets at event for Hispanic voters

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      Donald Trump – who has built his presidential campaign on the idea that immigrants are “destroying” the US and promoting mass deportation – faced blunt, tough questions from undecided Hispanic voters on Tuesday.At a town hall hosted by Univision, the largest US Spanish-language network, several dozen Latino voters from across the country questioned the former president about immigration, as well as the economy, abortion and other key issues.The Republican presidential candidate – who has been increasingly trying to court Latino voters – struggled to field specific questions about policy, even as he doubled down on misinformation about immigration.Polls have indicated that Trump is making inroads with Hispanic voters, who – like multiple other demographic groups – say they favour the former president on economic issues. Latino voters are an increasingly important voting bloc in several swing states. At the town hall, in front of 100 voters, Trump did not mention his plans to order the largest mass deportation in US history.He also dodged or dismissed tough questions about his rhetoric and policies concerning immigrants. When a voter, who mentioned he was a registered Republican, asked why Trump keeps repeating the debunked myth that Haitian immigrants are eating pets in Springfield, Ohio, Trump doubled down.“I was just saying what was reported,” Trump said – adding that migrants were “eating other things too, that they’re not supposed to”.Guadalupe Ramirez, whose parents immigrated from Mexico, asked Trump for more details about his proposals and asked why he had urged legislators to vote against a bipartisan immigration reform bill. Trump provided no details, but instead criticised Democratic leaders, including the governor of Illinois, alleging that migrants were driving up crime, and boasted that he had the “strongest border”.When Jorge Velázquez, a California farmworker, asked bluntly who would do the backbreaking labor of harvesting America’s fruit if Trump were to deport the many undocumented workers who currently do the job, the former president dodged.He accused newer immigrants of stealing jobs from Hispanic people in the US, and characterised migrants – as he often does – as “hundreds of thousands of people that are murderers, drug dealers and terrorists”.“We have to have people that are great people come into our country,” he said. “I want them in even more than you do.” But he never directly addressed deportations.During her town hall with Univision, Kamala Harris highlighted her policies to address inflation and protect abortion rights. She also warned that her opponent was sowing misinformation and division.“I know that the vast majority of us have so much more in common than what separates us, and part of what pains me is the approach that frankly Donald Trump and some others have taken, which is to suggest that it’s us versus them … and having Americans point fingers at each other, using language that’s belittling people,” she said.“I don’t think that’s healthy for our nation, and I don’t admire that.” More