At Penn State, Trump reaches out to college voters and describes immigrants as ‘garbage’

In the final days of the 2024 presidential campaign, Donald Trump visited Pennsylvania State University to appeal to younger voters in the Happy Valley, delivering a dark, 90-minute speech Saturday in which he described immigrants as “garbage” and said “many people will die” without the massive deportation plan he has promised if elected to a second term.

“We’ve become like a garbage can for the rest of the world,” Trump told the crowd at the college’s Bryce Jordan Center, reiterating a term that has recently entered his stump speeches. “They’re throwing all their garbage into our country.”

The former president, the Republican nominee, criticized his Democratic opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, for allowing immigration to increase during the administration of President Joe Biden, calling America a “dumping ground for nations all over the world. They’re dumping people into our country they don’t want because they’re too dangerous and too expensive.”

”We’re not going to let this bulls— happen any longer,” Trump said.

Despite Trump’s assertions, however, a National Institute of Justice study found that undocumented immigrants are arrested at about half the rate of native-born U.S. citizens for violent and drug crimes.

By an hour into his speech, a significant number of the thousands who had shown up for the rally were leaving the basketball arena.

More than any other state, in the final days of the campaign, Trump, Harris, and their surrogates have been crisscrossing Pennsylvania, hoping to capture its 19 electoral votes.

Polling averages have the race as a virtual tie in Pennsylvania. The latest Franklin and Marshall and Emerson College polls, released Thursday, both put Trump ahead of Harris by a single percentage point.

Hillary Clinton and Biden narrowly carried Centre County in the 2016 and 2020 elections, respectively. The county, in the very center of the state, is almost evenly divided between Democratic and Republican registrants. But the home to Penn State is surrounded by red counties that went heavily for Trump in both elections.

Trump’s visit to Penn State comes as Republicans seek to connect to younger voters. Nationally, young men heavily favor Trump, 58% to 37%, based on the last three New York Times/Siena national polls. Among young women, Harris leads 67% to 28%.

Although Democrats are still favored among Pennsylvania’s youngest voters, Republicans have been making gains, according to a recent Inquirer analysis of voter registration data.

Following the 2012 election, 45% of registered 18-year-olds in Pennsylvania were Democrats, while 30% were Republicans. As of last week, however, 38% of the state’s registered 18-year-olds were Democrats and 38% were Republicans.

Luke Scott, 18, an engineering major at Penn State, said he came to Saturday’s rally based on what he’d seen on social media.

“His rallies looked really cool,” Scott said as he was waiting in line outside the arena.

Scott said he supported Trump because he trusted him more on securing the border and creating good-paying jobs.

“Owning a home when I’m older is definitely one of my top priorities,” Scott said.

Only the lower area of the 15,000-plus-seat Bryce Jordan Center basketball arena was open, and it was mostly full when the rally began.

Prior to Trump’s arrival, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R., Ga.) took the stage and urged attendees to “stop the invasion” of illegal immigrants by voting for Trump.

But in a week in which Trump’s former chief of staff, John Kelly, told the New York Times that Trump had spoken positively about Adolf Hitler, and Harris called him a fascist, Greene sought to portray the former president as a loving father, grandfather, and friend.

“He’s a great American that has spent his entire life helping people. … He is genuinely one of the nicest people I know, and I talk to him very often,” Greene said. “Donald Trump doesn’t have to do this. He’s doing it because he loves this country and he sincerely cares about every single one of you.”

Trump acknowledged the large number of students at Saturday’s rally and urged them to vote.

“For all the young people at Penn State and across America who may be voting for the first time, I want you to know that I am in this fight,” he said.

In between railing against immigrants, and occasionally transgender people, Trump touched on his plans to end taxes on tips and overtime, reduce inflation, boost fracking in Pennsylvania, and impose huge tariffs on imported goods in an effort bring manufacturing jobs back to the United States

Sonia Gonzales, 53, a cost controller in the oil and gas industry, said the economy was her top issue, like others interviewed on Saturday.

Gonzales, who splits her time between West Virginia and New Mexico, said she will be voting for Trump “because he’s a businessman.”

“I don’t feel that people should be voting on whether they like the way he talks. They should be voting based on who can do the job,” Gonzales said. “When he was in office, the economy was doing way better.”

Trump and Harris are headed back to the Philadelphia area in the coming days.

Trump on Tuesday is scheduled to attend a roundtable event in Delaware County hosted by a conservative nonprofit. It will focus on senior citizens’ issues. He was in Bucks County last weekend for a campaign event at a McDonald’s restaurant in Feasterville.

Harris participated in a CNN town hall in Delaware County last Wednesday — Trump had been invited but did not show up — and is planning to campaign Sunday at neighborhood events in Philadelphia, where Democrats are hoping to drive up turnout to offset Trump’s support in rural Pennsylvania.