‘These are not people, these are animals’ – Trump on immigrants

WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump doesnt mind stirring up a hornet’s nest. This time too, the US President didn’t hesitate in expressing what he believes ‘right’ about immigrants aboding in the United States.

In a latest statement, Trump referred to some people deported from the United States as “animals” during a round-table discussion with California sheriffs on Wednesday

It’s the latest in a series of statements stretching Trump’s entire national political career that carelessly conflate immigration, criminality, and violence.

It was hardly the first time the president has spoken in racially fraught terms about immigrants, but it underscored his anger about unchecked immigration — the animating issue of his campaign and his tenure so far — and his frustration that he has not been able to do more to seal the nation’s borders.

As he has in numerous private meetings with his advisers at the White House, Mr. Trump used the session to vent about the nation’s immigration laws, calling them “the dumbest laws on immigration in the world.” He exhorted his administration to “do much better” in keeping out undesirable people, including members of transnational gangs like MS-13.

“We have people coming into the country, or trying to come in — we’re stopping a lot of them,” Mr. Trump said in the Cabinet Room during an hourlong meeting that reporters were allowed to document. “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.”

Trump’s remarks were reminiscent of his first press conference as a presidential candidate in 2015, when he said the United States had become a “dumping ground” for people other countries didn’t want.

“When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best,” he said then. “They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.”

Trump has been particularly vocal in opposing so-called “sanctuary city” policies, in which some jurisdictions have refused to fully cooperate with federal immigration authorities. On Wednesday, he highlighted California cities who do cooperate, inviting mayors and sheriffs opposed to the state’s predominant policy.

“Each of you has bravely resisted California’s deadly and unconstitutional sanctuary state law,” Trump told them.