Donald Trump shared a cruel meme on his Truth Social platform on Wednesday that suggested alligators could be used to prevent migrants from illegally entering the US.
The image showed a group of alligators on a river bank.
“New Border Security” and “Will Work For Food,” read the caption.
“Problem solved!!” the former president wrote alongside the picture.
The post has been characterised as a joke in some quarters.
But it echoes Trump’s wider, ugly rhetoric against immigration.
In 2019, The New York Times reported on the then-president’s private musings on “fortifying a border wall with a water-filled trench, stocked with snakes or alligators.” Trump also talked about electrifying the border wall and shooting migrants in the legs, the article said.
Trump shared the gator post amid a rise in the number of people trying to cross into the US from Mexico.
On Wednesday, he vowed, if he returns to the White House, to send troops to the border.
“Upon my inauguration I will immediately terminate every open borders policy of the Biden administration,” Trump told supporters at a rally in Dubuque, Iowa. “I’ll make clear that we must use any and all resources needed to stop the invasion, including moving thousands of troops currently stationed overseas.”
The 2024 Republican front-runner also vowed to expand his previous Muslim travel ban.