"They're rapists." "Why are we having all these people from shithole countries come here?" "But you also had people that were very fine people, on both sides."
Now in his latest racist comment, Donald Trump referred on Wednesday to people trying to cross the border into the U.S. as "not people" but "animals" (above).
To be fair to the POTUS, he was responding to a question about MS-13. So in that context he might have just been referring to immigrant gang members. That's certainly what his supporters are arguing.
But since conservatives want to talk about context, let's put that in the bigger context of the picture Trump has been painting of immigrants as a whole.
Under his rule, ICE has been separating families, deporting members of our armed services, and even setting up detention centers that look suspiciously like internment camps.
His rhetoric only ever refers to immigrants in the same breath as criminals and terrorists — a big part of his platform is engendering fear of The Other. And dehumanization is a big part of that.
So in Trumpspeak, ANIMALS = CRIMINALS = IMMIGRANTS. That's the message. That has always been the message.
And we weren't the only ones who heard it loud and clear. Ch-ch-check out some of the strongest responses to his comments (below)
ICE is deporting people who’ve served multiple tours in the US Military. Something Officer Bone Spurs never did. They’re deporting people who love America more than Trump will ever pretend to. Are they the “animals,” Donny boy?? Shame on him.
Donald Trump routinely conflates Hispanic immigrants with crime and disorder. Moving from “illegals” in one breath to “MS-13” in the next. It’s part of his rhetoric. *That’s* the context for these recent remarks.
Anyone with a cursory understanding of rhetoric knows exactly what is happening when, in the context of sanctuary cities, Trump blasts MS-13 and calls them animals. And it’s rich to see conservatives yell “context” when that context isn’t actually exculpatory.
“During President Obama’s last year, about 16 percent of ICE arrests were of noncriminal immigrants; each month since July 2017, between 32 and 40 percent of arrestees have been noncriminals.”
The bigger question isn’t if he or his administration consider all immigrants, undocumented or otherwise, “animals.” It is whether Trump and co. have a habit of using the worst criminal examples to help justify a cruel policy that destroys the lives of countless who do no harm
It doesn't matter if Trump was only talking about gang members when he used the word "animals" to refer to immigrants since ICE's policy is, when they want an immigrant out, to lie and say he's a gang member. To wit:
Source: Perez Hilton
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