How the Trump Campaign Used Facebook Ads to Amplify His ‘Invasion’ Claim

New York Times logoSome of President Trump’s re-election ads have repeated his inflammatory claims about an “invasion” on the southern border — language that is under scrutiny after the El Paso shooting.

WASHINGTON — President Trump’s re-election campaign has harnessed Facebook advertising to push the idea of an “invasion” at the southern border, amplifying the fear-inducing language about immigrants that he has also voiced at campaign rallies and on Twitter.

Since January, Mr. Trump’s re-election campaign has posted more than 2,000 ads on Facebook that include the word “invasion” — part of a barrage of advertising focused on immigration, a dominant theme of his re-election messaging. A review of Mr. Trump’s tweets also found repeated references to an “invasion,” while his 2016 campaign advertising heavily featured dark warnings about immigrants breaching America’s borders.

Mr. Trump’s language on immigration — particularly his use of the word “invasion” — is under scrutiny after the mass shooting in El Paso on Saturday. The suspect in that shooting, which left 22 people dead, appeared to be the author of a manifesto declaring that “this attack is a response to the Hispanic invasion of Texas.”

View the complete August 5 article by Thomas Kaplan on The New York Times website here.