Fearing adverse political consequences, Donald Trump occasionally likes to argue that he, unlike those rascally Democrats, is the true champion of undocumented immigrants. It’s the Republicans, the president insists, who are on their side.
The rhetoric has long been at odds with reality, and yesterday, Trump hosted an immigration roundtable at the White House, where he dropped the facade.
“We have people coming into the country, or trying to come in — and we’re stopping a lot of them — but we’re taking people out of the country. You wouldn’t believe how bad these people are. These aren’t people. These are animals. And we’re taking them out of the country at a level and at a rate that’s never happened before. And because of the weak laws, they come in fast, we get them, we release them, we get them again, we bring them out. It’s crazy.”
This was not, alas, the first time this president referred to immigrants as “animals.” [Update: see below.]
But the fact that Trump’s rhetoric is increasingly common doesn’t make it any less offensive. Indeed, when a leader with authoritarian instincts start describing those he considers undesirable as less than human, there’s cause for concern.
A Washington Post report added, “There’s important historical context here, too, that many social media users pointed out: Referring to marginalized groups as subhuman has been a way dictators have justified the abuse of those groups.”
All of this comes less than a week after White House Chief of Staff John Kelly, echoing anti-immigration rhetoric from generations past, said undocumented immigrants are unskilled and uneducated people who can’t “easily assimilate” and “don’t integrate well.”
It’s almost as if Trump’s assurances about treating immigrants with great “heart” were insincere.









