WATCH ABOVE: The prison reportedly had a video camera watching over El Chapo’s cell, but it did not record how he was able to tunnel out undetected. Brian Webb reports.
TORONTO – Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump is using the dramatic escape of cartel kingpin Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman to add to his criticism of Mexico and its “unbelievable corruption.”
Trump took to Twitter on Sunday to say the escape is an example of the problems he was referring to in his controversial comments that Mexican migrants bring drugs into the United States and are rapists.
“Mexico’s biggest drug lord escapes from jail. Unbelievable corruption and USA is paying the price. I told you so!” Trump said in a Twitter message.
A manhunt is currently underway after Guzman escaped from his maximum security prison cell in Mexico through a 1.5-kilometer tunnel that opened into the shower area of his cell. The head of the Sinaloa Cartel first escaped prison in 2001 before he was re-captured in February 2014.
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Trump has been highlighting crimes committed by illegal immigrants in his campaign speeches across the U.S. In his bizarre presidential announcement, Trump criticized U.S. immigration policing and charged Mexico with sending violent offenders into the country.
“When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re not sending you, they’re not sending you,” Trump said. “They’re sending people who have lots of problems and they’re bringing their problems with us. They’re bringing drugs, they’re bringing crime, they’re rapists, and some, I assume, are good people.”
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Over the weekend Trump continued to make controversial statements regarding immigrants at campaign events in Nevada and Arizona.
“These people wreak havoc on our population,” Trump told a few thousand people at an event inside a Planet Hollywood ballroom in Las Vegas.
His comments have led to several companies distancing themselves, including Univision and NBC. During a speech at an event in Phoenix, as Trump ripped into Univision for cancelling its broadcast of the Miss USA pageant a group of protesters held up a sign that read “Stop Hate” and began chanting insults. They were eventually escorted from the building by security.
“I wonder if the Mexican government sent them over here,” Trump told the audience. “I think so.”
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Several high-ranking GOP leaders have called on Trump to tone down his rhetoric on immigration over fears the Republican Party could lose the Hispanic vote in the upcoming election in 2016.
During an interview on CNN’s State of the Union Sunday, South Carolina Senator and presidential candidate Lindsey Graham said Trump has “hijacked the debate”
“I think he’s a wrecking ball for the future of the Republican Party with the Hispanic community, and we need to push back,” Graham told CNN’s Dana Bash.
“I’m very worried about where we’re headed as a party. I don’t think this is the way to get the Latino vote,” he said. “If we do not reject this way of thinking clearly, without any ambiguity, we will have lost our way. If we don’t reject it, we’ve lost the moral authority, in my view, to govern this country.”
The crowded Republican presidential field currently sits at 14 candidates, and could reach 17 by the end of the summer.
*With files from the Associated Press
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