Not content with insulting a female reporter’s intelligence and professionalism, Donald Trump apparently mocked a conservative critic for being paralyzed. Trump in an interview with NBC News was asked about columnist Charles Krauthammer, who is paralyzed from the waist down and has called Trump a “rodeo clown.” In response to criticism from Krauthammer and National Review columnist Jonah Goldberg, Trump said the following: “I went out, I made a fortune, a big fortune, a tremendous fortune… bigger than people even understand,” he said before discussing his plan to release financial statements. “Then I get called by a guy that can’t buy a pair of pants, I get called names?”
Donald J. Trump descended “Stair Force One” to announce his candidacy for the Republican nomination for the President of the United States of America and his first overtly racist comment by implying that the country of Mexico is intentionally sending immigrants who are criminals and rapists.
“When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re not sending you. They’re not sending you. They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.”
Reality
Donald Trump described people from Mexico as having “lots of problems”, drug users, rapists, and criminals. By painting a large swath of people with a single brush as “dangerous” he is using baseless stereotyping in an attempt to prove that Hispanics are different in their social behavior.
You might try to make the case that immigrants are still committing crimes, even if they are at a lower rate of natural-born citizens, however that does not explain away the fact that Trump is singling out an individual ethnic group as the cause of the problems in America. That is why is statement is racist.
Immigrants generally have a stronger incentive than native-born Americans to stay out of legal trouble — especially undocumented immigrants, who risk deportation. And those who legally are in the United States (or are pursuing legal status) are required to pass a criminal background check.
“Immigrants in general — unauthorized immigrants in particular — are a self-selected group who generally come to the U.S. to work. And once they’re here, most of them want to keep their nose down and do their business, and they’re sensitive to the fact that they’re vulnerable,” said Marc Rosenblum, deputy director of the U.S. Immigration Policy Program at the Migration Policy Institute, a non-partisan think tank.
And the data backs up this theory.
Crime Rates
FALSE – According to the Congressional Research Service, incarcerated non-citizens represented 7.2% of the total incarcerated population of 2.4 million, a proportion similar to the noncitizen proportion of the foreign-born population. If illegal immigrants were bringing high crime then their should be a larger number of incarcerated illegal immigrants compared to the national population.
Mexicans Are Rapists
FALSE – Of all of the convictions of illegal immigrants in 2013 (the majority of whom were from Mexico) only 1.6% was sex offenses. Immigration offenses account for the largest portion of federal convictions of immigrants, followed by drugs, then traffic violations.
Crime Category
2013
Immigration
31.3%
Dangerous Drugs
15.4%
Traffic Violations
15.0%
Assault
10.2%
Burglary
2.8%
Weapon Offenses
2.7%
Larceny
2.7%
Fraud
2.6%
Sexual Assault
1.6%
Forgery
1.5%
Other
14.2%
Compare the 1.6% number to the national average of 12.2% of convicted prisoners who committed sexual offenses. So an illegal immigrant is 7.5x less likely to commit a sexual offense.
During his campaign announcement, Trump declared that the five Guantanamo Bay prisoners exchanged with the Taliban for Army Pvt. Bowe Bergdahl “are now back on the battlefield trying to kill us.”
“We get Bergdahl. We get a traitor. We get a no-good traitor, and they get the five people that they wanted for years, and those people are now back on the battlefield trying to kill us. That’s the negotiator we have,” Trump remarked.
Reality
In fact, U.S. officials had announced two weeks prior that Qatar, the country to which the Taliban leaders were sent, had agreed to maintain a year-long travel ban while officials in both countries continued to negotiate the details.
As far as the traitor remark, Bergdahl’s attorney warned Trump in August to cease spreading his “outrageous comments.” Bergdahl is accused of desertion, not of being a “traitor.”
Donald Trump retweeted the following tweet to all of his supporters, before deleting it shortly afterwords.
Donald Trump Tweeting Hillary Joke
Reality
As funny as this may be, locker room humor is not befitting of a candidate for the Republican nomination for the President of the United States of America.
