In a continued onslaught of anti-immigrant rhetoric, Donald Trump claimed on Monday that illegal immigrants bring “bad genes” into the United States, further intensifying his previous controversial remarks about migrants contaminating the country’s blood. The statement was made during a radio interview where Trump criticized his Democratic presidential opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris. He referenced government statistics showing 13,000 immigrants in the U.S. evaded federal immigration detention despite being convicted of homicide.
Trump, who is currently neck-and-neck with Harris in nationwide and swing-state polls ahead of the November election, has devoted a significant portion of his campaign to denigrating both undocumented immigrants and those residing legally in the United States. “How about allowing people to come to an open border, 13,000 of which were murderers, many of them murdered far more than one person? They are now happily living in the United States,” he told conservative host Hugh Hewitt. “You know now, a murderer – I believe this – it’s in their genes. We’ve got a lot of bad genes in our country right now. They had 425,000 people come into our country that shouldn’t be here that are criminals.”
Trump’s claims are based on a misinterpretation of data released in September by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency. The figures do not include individuals incarcerated outside of ICE facilities – such as state, local or other federal facilities – and they encompass a period spanning decades, including when Trump was president. US media reported on Monday that migrant apprehensions at the US-Mexico border decreased by 75 percent year-on-year in September – reaching the lowest level since the Trump administration – citing Department of Homeland Security statistics.
“I don’t normally defend Trump’s statements, and even here he drops the 13,000 released murderers lie,” said conservative political commentator Richard Hanania, president of the Center for the Study of Partisanship and Ideology. “But he’s right that crime is largely genetic. He should just learn about the low crime rate among immigrants and think about the implications.”
Last month, during a rally, the 78-year-old former reality TV star called for Harris to be prosecuted over President Joe Biden’s border policies and referred to illegal immigrants as “animals” who are out to “rape, pillage, thieve, plunder and kill.” “They will walk into your kitchen, they’ll cut your throat,” he warned. He also repeatedly threatened legal Haitian residents in Ohio with deportation, falsely accusing them of eating locals’ pets. Trump – the oldest major-party White House candidate in history and the first convicted felon to run – accused immigrants of “poisoning the blood of our country” in December, a phrase that drew comparisons to Adolf Hitler. These continued attacks on immigrants, fueled by misinformation and prejudice, are raising concerns about the potential for escalating xenophobia and violence in the lead-up to the election.
