Trump Pledges to Start Migrant Deportations in Ohio and Colorado

Former President Donald J. Trump said on Friday that if elected to a second term, he would begin his promised mass deportations of undocumented immigrants in two cities in Ohio and Colorado that have been the center of his baseless and exaggerated claims about migrants.

“We’re going to have the largest deportation in the history of our country,” Mr. Trump said at a news conference at Trump National Golf Club in Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif., on Friday afternoon. “And we’re going to start with Springfield and Aurora.”

In his debate against Vice President Kamala Harris on Tuesday night, Mr. Trump repeated an outlandish claim that Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio, were stealing and eating the pets of local residents. Local officials have said there is no evidence for the claim, which began on social media. Mr. Trump and prominent right-wing influencers have fueled the spread of falsehoods, sharing memes, generated by artificial intelligence, of the former president saving cats.

Mr. Trump has continued to repeat the rumors, insisting again in a speech on Thursday that Haitian immigrants are abducting pets from residents. And his social media accounts have a series of digitally generated images of cats that he is rescuing or that are holding signs saying they support him over his rival, Ms. Harris.

Since the debate, Springfield has been at the center of a maelstrom. This week, bomb threats have led to the evacuation of city hall and multiple schools. But Mr. Trump on Friday dismissed the danger that his rhetoric might be posing to the city’s residents. “No, no,” he said. “The real threat is what’s happening at our border.”