Years after President Obama produced his birth certificate, Donald Trump reiterated his belief that Obama was not born a natural citizen to CNN.
Do you know that Hillary Clinton was a birther? She wanted those records and fought like hell. People forgot. Did you know John McCain was a birther? Wanted those records? They couldn’t get the records. Hillary failed. John McCain failed. Trump was able to get (Obama)] to give something — I don’t know what the hell it was — but it doesn’t matter.
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.
Describing how he would negotiate with the CEO of an American car company that wanted to relocate to or build a manufacturing plant in Mexico, Trump had an imagined conversation during his June 16 announcement.
“I would call up the head of Ford, who I know,” Trump said, going on to say that he would say, “Congratulations. That’s the good news. Let me give you the bad news. Every car and every truck and every part manufactured in this plant that comes across the border, we’re going to charge you a 35-percent tax, and that tax is going to be paid simultaneously with the transaction, and that’s it.”
Reality
That would, as The Washington Post‘s initial fact check stated, seem to violate the North America Free Trade Agreement (a treaty that Trump has openly disdained). It also does not take into account the fact that only Congress could establish separate tax rates under the Constitution.
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.”
Donal Trump made the claim he invented the slogan “Make America Great Again”.
“The line of ‘Make America great again,’ the phrase, that was mine, I came up with it about a year ago, and I kept using it, and everybody’s now using it, they are all loving it.”
“I don’t know, I guess I should copyright it.”
“Maybe I have copyrighted it.”
Reality
As many news agencies have pointed out:
Reagan “Let’s make America great again” Poster
Donald Trump has indeed trademarked the phrase, but apparently the filing overlooked clothing, such as t-shirts and hats.
