'Open and gushing.' Trump focuses on immigration in N.C. speech ahead of Super Tuesday

GREENSBORO, N.C. – Calling the migrant crisis "an invasion," Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump blitzed President Joe Biden about immigration at a North Carolina rally Saturday.

"Our border is an open and gushing wound," he said.

The GOP front-runner repeatedly brought up southern border security, and attempted to connect it to violent crime in the country including the murder of a 22-year-old nursing student in Georgia. Authorities have charged a man they say entered the U.S. illegally in 2022, with her death.

Trump's focus underscores how much Republicans want this year's elections to be about the U.S.-Mexico border, which they believe will motivate their base and boost their candidates from the top to the bottom on the 2024 ballot.

"Under Biden we now have a brand new category of crime, it's called 'migrant crime.' We have criminals that are going around having boxing matches with our police officers," he said.

Trump also used the speech to brag about how easy it has been for him in the GOP primary, as the former president looks to finish off the rival campaign of former South Carolina Nikki Haley.

He is expected to extend his delegate lead when millions of voters across the nation head to the polls on March 5, better known as Super Tuesday.

Haley came up once by name, when Trump dismissed her as "very average" when he mentioned winning her home state, and other places, by large margins.

"I haven't heard about this woman for the past five days," he said.

Immigration tops Trump voter's concerns

The crowd was raucous when Trump dotted the speech with his most often used lines: defending the Jan. 6, 2021 rioters; attacking prosecutors in the multiple indictments he faces; and repeating the lie that he didn't lose the 2020 election.

But supporters were almost silent as they listened intently when Trump described the death of Laken Riley, a University of Georgia student found dead last month, in explicit terms.

The suspect, 26-year-old Jose Antonio Ibarra, was arrested on murder and assault charges. But the case has ignited anger among conservative activists after federal authorities announced Ibarra entered the U.S. illegally in 2022.

Trump said Riley's family will never be the same after she was "barbarically attacked." He compared the incident to the horror movie "The Silence of The Lambs."

Every speaker who headlined Saturday's rally followed Trump's lead, and mentioned the migrant crisis at the U.S. southern border which many claimed is the root of other national woes from drug addiction to violent crime.

"The strength behind me is Jesus Christ, but folks we have trouble in this country. We have a wide open border," Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, who is running for governor in the Republican primary, told the audience.

Trump famously championed building a wall at the U.S.-Mexico border (which he asserted the foreign country would pay for) when he first ran in the 2016 presidential campaign.

During his time as president he implemented many hardline, and controversial, policies when it came to immigration, such as separating migrant families .

In this campaign, he has promised stiffer action if returned to power such as "ideological screenings" aimed at Muslim-majority nations.

One proposed idea Trump has touted in recent weeks has been to recruit local law enforcement to help launch the, "largest deportation operation in American history."

Those strict policy prescriptions, which liberal opponents say are xenophobic, appeal to many of the right-leaning voters who made up the standing-room only audience at the Greensboro Coliseum Complex, which at one pointed created a line that snaked through the parking lot.

"The national situation is on a downhill slope. Immigration is the driving issue," Gilbert Jones, 70, a retired restaurant manager, who hails from Ruffin, N.C., told USA TODAY. Jones mentioned the record number of border crossings a month, at a time when "we can't feed our people now."

Poll: Haley trailing among likely N.C. voters

Haley has been sending mixed messages as her underdog bid faces what many political forecasters believe could be her last stand on Super Tuesday.

On the trail she has blasted Trump by listing multiple reasons he shouldn't be the GOP standard bearer in 2024. But when speaking with reporters that same day, she hedged, saying she isn't anti-Trump.

"All of you have made this race about Trump," Haley told reporters.

The former UN ambassador trails in most of the March 5 contests, including in closely watched North Carolina.

"We cannot win the White House without winning North Carolina, without winning battleground states all across this country," state GOP chair Michael Whatley, who Trump has nominated to be Republican National Committee chair, told Saturday's crowd.

North Carolina has been decided by less than four percentage points in each presidential race since 2008. Trump carried the state in 2020 over Biden by less than one and a half percent.

Polling shows Tar Heel State primary voters remain loyal to the former president by a much wider margin.

Trump has a firm 69% among likely and self-reported voters while Haley holds 24%, according to High Point University Survey Research Center poll released Friday.

James Hill, 44, who attended Saturday's rally, said he plans to stick with Trump despite his GOP rival's warnings that he is vulnerable in the general election.

It is Haley's prerogative to stay in the race, he said.

But the Winston-Salem native admits he doesn't see the point.

"It's up to her, I'm not voting for her," Hill said. "If it makes her happy that she's in this position on TV, running for office − that's how dreams are made."

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Donald Trump focuses on border ahead of Super Tuesday at N.C. rally