Former President Donald Trump said at a rally on Saturday that people will leave the country if he is reelected because he will crack down on immigration.
Trump is the frontrunner in the 2024 GOP presidential primary and has continued to rally his supporters behind the Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement, which is heavily based on anti-immigration policy. In a 2018 report, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) claimed that the Trump administration "demonizes immigrants and those seeking refuge."
Speaking at a rally in Durham, New Hampshire, on Saturday, Trump predicted that some Americans would opt to move out of the country if he took office again.
"As soon as we win, you know what's gonna happen. People are gonna flood out of the country. They're gonna flood out before we even do anything. They're gonna leave the country because they're gonna understand that I will immediately restore and expand the Trump travel ban on entry from terror-plagued countries," the former president said.
He continued: "And I will implement strong ideological screening for all illegal immigrants. If you hate America. If you want to abolish Israel, if you sympathize with jihadists, then we don't want you in our country. We don't want you."
Trump's travel ban, also known as his Muslim ban, was first introduced in an executive order by the former president in January 2017. The ban barred the entry into the U.S. of people from Libya, Iran, Somalia, Syria and Yemen, which all have a majority of Muslims, as well as North Korea and Venezuela. The ban indefinitely suspended the issuance of visas to people from these seven countries.
The ban expanded in January 2020 to include Burma, Eritrea, Kyrgyzstan, Nigeria, Tanzania, and Sudan. During President Joe Biden's first day in office on January 20, 2021, he signed an executive order rescinding the travel ban.
Newsweek reached out to Trump's campaign team via email for comment.
During Trump's 2020 reelection campaign, he joked at a rally in Macon, Georgia, that if Biden won the presidency he would leave the county.
"Running against the worst candidate in the history of presidential politics puts pressure on me. Could you imagine if I lose...Maybe I'll have to leave the country? I don't know," he said at the time.
Meanwhile, Biden did win the 2020 election and Trump did stay in the country.
Did People Really Leave the Country When Trump Was Elected?
Yes, people really did move abroad after Trump won the 2016 election against Hillary Clinton.
Business Insider talked to 12 individuals in December 2020 who specifically left the country because Trump was elected. Their reasons for moving abroad varied. Some pointed to the increase in racism in America during the Trump presidency, while one woman said she decided to leave after an encounter with a stranger who assumed she was not from America.
Michelle Dallocchio, an American of Pacific Islander decent, told Business Insider that weeks before the 2016 election a man approached her, called her a stupid b****, and told her to go back to her own country. Dallocchio said the man also mentioned "the wall" during their encounter.
A major part of Trump's MAGA movement has been a push for a wall stretching the whole U.S.-Mexico border to curb the influx of migrants that enter the U.S. illegally through the southern border.
Dallocchio said she told her Italian husband after the encounter: "This is not the future I want." The couple moved to London in March 2020.
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