Trump calls US 'garbage can for the world' in latest anti-immigrant rhetoric

Former President Donald Trump escalated his anti-immigrant rhetoric at a rally in battleground Arizona on Thursday, calling the United States a "garbage can for the world."

"We're a dumping ground. We're like a -- we're like a garbage can for the world. That's what, that's what's happened to us. We're like a garbage can," Trump said at a rally in Tempe, Arizona, on Thursday.

Trump made the comments as he criticized the Biden-Harris administration for its handling of the border, a key voter issue -- especially in Arizona, a border state and swing state that President Joe Biden flipped to edge out Trump by 0.3 percentage points in 2020. Trump also made the comments with less than two weeks until Election Day -- and as the former president and Vice President Kamala Harris duke it out in what's expected to be a close contest.

The former president went on to claim that criminals and other bad figures are from all over the world are coming into the country unchecked.

"First time I've ever said 'garbage can,'" Trump said. "But you know what? It's a very accurate description."

Harris told reporters in Houston on Friday that Trump's assertion that America is a "garbage can for the world" "belittles our country."

"This is someone who is a former president of the United States, who has a bully pulpit, and this is how he uses it, to tell the rest of the world that somehow the United States of America is trash," Harris said. "And I think, again, the president of the United States should be someone who elevates discourse and talks about the best of who we are and invest in the best of who we are, not someone like Donald Trump, who is constantly demeaning and belittling who the American people are."

While the "garbage can" remarks may be a first for Trump to utter at a rally, it's not the first time he has used anti-immigrant rhetoric -- now a common element at his events. Since he began campaigning for president this cycle, Trump has said immigrants are "poisoning the blood of our country" and called them "criminals" who will "cut your throat."

Earlier this year, Trump repeated false claims about Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio, eating the dogs and cats of the town's residents. Notably, Trump mentioned the baseless claims -- which were amplified by right-wing politicians, including vice presidential nominee Sen. JD Vance – on the presidential debate stage.

Earlier this month, the former president used anti-immigrant rhetoric during an interview on Newsmax's "Rob Schmitt Tonight" to disparage many of the legal Haitian migrants living in Springfield Ohio, referring to their temporary protective status as "a certain little trick."

"Look at Springfield, where 30,000 illegal immigrants dropped, and it was, they may have done it through a certain little trick, but they are illegal immigrants as far as I'm concerned," said Trump. "They're destroying the town … they'll end up destroying the state. We cannot let this happen."

He has also called for the round up and deportation of millions of migrants living in the U.S. without legal permission.

Also in October, the former president suggested he believes that migrants have it "in their genes" to murder people, adding "we got a lot of bad genes in our country."

"How about allowing people to come through an open border -- 13,000 of which were murderers, many of them murdered far more than one person, and they're now happily living in the United States. You know now a murderer, I believe this, it's in their genes. And we got a lot of bad genes in our country right now," Trump said during an interview on the "Hugh Hewitt Show."

Despite the fact that U.S. citizens commit crimes at higher rates than undocumented immigrants, Trump painted them as "criminals" who will "cut your throat" at a campaign stop in Wisconsin in September.

"And you remember when they say no, no, these are migrants and these migrants, they don't commit crimes like us," Trump said. "No, no, they make our criminals look like babies. These are stone-cold killers. They'll walk into your kitchen, they'll cut your throat."

Trump also featured anti-immigrant rhetoric in his 2016 White House bid -- often casting them as rapists and drug traffickers.

ABC News' Will McDuffie, Fritz Farrow and Gabriella Abdul-Hakim contributed to this report.