Last week, Donald Trump drew heavy criticism for referring to some undocumented immigrants as “animals.” During a roundtable discussion on immigration with California sheriffs, he said, “We have people coming into the country–or trying to come in, we stop 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.”
The Trump team insists that the statement wasn’t racist since he wasn’t referring to all immigrants, just specifically the members of MS-13. But that argument ignores a lot of important context. To start, this isn’t the first time Trump has used that word. He has a history of using the horrific crimes of MS-13 as a way to fuel white Americans’ fears around immigration in general. This particular gang is a stand-in for undocumented immigrants, and thanks to the rhetoric coming out of the White House and Fox News, the line between undocumented and legal immigration, in terms of what we’re meant to fear and blame, is becoming increasingly blurred.
All of that is what was being discussed by the public and the media when Trump’s White House defensively doubled down on their usage of the word. Today, they published a document titled “What You Need To Know About The Violent Animals Of MS-13.” Out of about 500 words total, the article uses the word “animal” 10 times (including the headline). It tells the stories of a number of people who have been victims of MS-13’s violence and ends by saying “President Trump’s entire Administration is working tirelessly to bring these violent animals to justice.”
When Trump talks about immigration, he nearly exclusively talks about it in terms of crime. He does this despite the fact that all evidence dispells a connection between immigration and crime rates. He uses general terms about “bad people” doing “bad things,” or he uses specific anecdotes, usually involving MS-13 members attacking young white women–a horrendous thing that has happened, but Trump is blatantly using those women as mere props in a fear-mongering narrative of moral panic.
If Trump didn’t talk about “shithole countries,” if he didn’t seem to view Puerto Rico as a drain on America’s economic resources, and if he didn’t so often equate immigration as a whole with the crimes of a specific gang, it would be a lot easier to believe that he didn’t mean to implicate all Hispanic immigrants, or even all undocumented immigrants in his “animals” comment. Or if the people he’s so proud of deporting really were all violent criminals, instead of children, hospitalized people, or women seeking protection from domestic violence. Or if he commented on crimes committed by white men in any way that resembled how he talks about others.
But that’s not the case. Instead, his words once again work to dehumanize all immigrants by framing immigration solely through the lens of crime. And rather than attempt to understand and empathize with what so many individuals and media outlets heard in those comments–or even back up his words with facts and statistics rather than violent anecdotes and vagueries–Trump’s White House went on the attack.
No one is defending MS-13. We are objecting to the fact that Trump has turned the conversation about immigration and immigrants into a conversation about MS-13. We object to the racism and xenophobia behind that manipulation of a narrative.
(image: Alex Wong/Getty Images)
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