President Trump, promoting a secure border and defending his administration’s hard-line immigration agenda, told the families of people killed by undocumented immigrants that their loved ones would still be alive if the 2020 election hadn’t been “rigged.”
Mr. Trump has been ramping up a series of unfounded attacks on the security of U.S. elections, and he has frequently repeated the lie that he won the election in 2020. His latest comments, delivered at the White House in front of grieving families on Monday, was the first time he linked his theory to the fates of people who had been murdered.
“If that election wasn’t rigged,” Mr. Trump told the families, “every single one of the people in this room right now would not be here.”
Minutes later, a woman named Marie Vega shared her story of loss. Her son, Javier Vega Jr., was shot and killed by two undocumented immigrants during a robbery attempt in 2014, two years before Mr. Trump was first elected.
Ms. Vega also reaffirmed the president’s claim that he had been cheated: “By the way, you won that election as well,” she said, turning to Mr. Trump. “And we know it.”
The event on Monday, in which Mr. Trump gathered several families at the White House to sign a proclamation honoring people who had been killed by undocumented immigrants, showed how closely people the president has called angel families have become intertwined with his political identity.
For over a decade, those families have provided powerful political cover for some of Mr. Trump’s most aggressive policies, which are predicated on the idea that undocumented immigrants are responsible for violence. Mr. Trump and his supporters often point to high-profile crimes as evidence, but data shows that immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than people who are born in the United States.
As Americans remain torn over the administration’s aggressive and sometimes violent methods of immigration enforcement, these families are continuing to back up Mr. Trump. On Monday, they stepped up to the microphone to praise the president, elevate his unfounded claims or serve as character witnesses.
“I think that a lot of people feel like, that President Trump is maybe different than the person I’ve gotten to know,” said Allyson Phillips, the mother of Laken Riley, a nursing student at the University of Georgia who was killed by an undocumented immigrant in 2024. “You have said from the beginning, literally, the day after this happened, that you would not forget about Laken. You weren’t president at that time, and you have not forgotten.”
During the 2024 election cycle, Ms. Riley’s death became a rallying cry for conservatives who believed Democrats had not done enough to tamp down immigration at the southern border.
The activism that grew around Ms. Riley was powerful enough to disrupt President Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s State of the Union address in 2024. At the time, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia heckled him about his immigration agenda. Mr. Biden had intended to use that part of his speech to disparage Mr. Trump’s comments that vilified immigrants; instead, he said Ms. Riley had been killed by an “illegal” and was criticized for using that word.
The proclamation Mr. Trump signed on Monday designated Feb. 22, the day Ms. Riley was murdered, as Angel Families Day. A White House official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe speech planning, said several of the families had been invited to Mr. Trump’s first State of the Union address of his second term, scheduled for Tuesday evening.
In his remarks, Mr. Trump is expected to focus on the economy and immigration enforcement. Democrats have signaled that they will find ways to protest the contents of Mr. Trump’s speech, either by skipping it altogether or by inviting people to the chamber who have been detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers.
“We have a country that’s now doing well, we have the greatest economy we’ve ever had and the most activity we’ve ever had. I’m making a speech tomorrow night, and you will be hearing me say that,” Mr. Trump said. “It is going to be a long speech, because we have so much to talk about.”
At the White House on Monday, during an appearance that lasted almost an hour, Mr. Trump hugged relatives of the victims and stopped his speech to ask after the eye health of Patty Morin, whose daughter, Rachel, was killed by an undocumented immigrant in 2023.
The president told the crowd that he was paying for Ms. Morin to receive eye surgery. “A lot of money to get her eyes fixed,” he said. “That doctor ripped me off, but that’s OK.”
Mr. Trump also commented that his second term had so far been “much more powerful” than his first. Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, and Tom Homan, the White House border czar, sat in the audience.
At several points, while talking about the importance of remembering people who had been killed, Mr. Trump appeared to refer to several assassination attempts against him. Over the weekend, a man with a firearm was shot and killed after he entered the perimeter of Mar-a-Lago, the president’s compound in Florida, while Mr. Trump was in Washington.
”You read about all these crazy shooters, but they only go after consequential presidents,” Mr. Trump said. “They don’t go after nonconsequential presidents.”
As he closed the event, he circled back to reflect on his own mortality.
“ I don’t know how long I’ll be around. I’ve a lot of people gunning for me, don’t I?” the president said. “But I will not forget them. I’m never going to forget them.”
Katie Rogers is a White House correspondent for The Times, reporting on President Trump.
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