The illegal immigrant highlighted in a racially charged campaign ad President Trump posted on social media Wednesday entered the U.S. on multiple occasions, the final time under the Bush administration, and was released by former Republican Sheriff Joe Arpaio, according to a new report.
The ad accuses Democrats of allowing Luis Bracamontes of Mexico, who was convicted of killing two U.S. police officers in 2014 and received the death penalty when he was sentenced in April, “into our country” and allowing him to “stay.”
“Who else would Democrats let in?” the ad says later.
But according to the Sacramento Bee, Bracamontes initially entered the U.S. in 1993 and was deported in 1997 after he was arrested on drug offenses during the Clinton administration. He came back to the U.S. and was arrested in Phoenix on drug charges in 1998, but Arpaio’s office released him for “reasons unknown.”
In 2001 during the George W. Bush administration, Bracamontes was arrested again on marijuana charges and was deported again in May. He re-entered the U.S. between then and February 2002, as records indicate he was married in Arizona on Feb. 28, 2002.
The Sacramento Bee reports he stayed in the U.S. during the Bush and Obama administrations through 2014, when he was arrested for killing the two police officers.
Republicans have been pushing immigration issues leading up to the 2018 midterm elections, a topic that comes as two caravans of migrants from Central America are headed to the southern U.S. border.
Trump revealed this week that up to 15,000 troops will be sent to the border prior to the first caravan’s arrival, and has said that “nobody is coming in” illegally.
