Trump, Immigrants, and Pets: A Distraction from a Discussion of Immigration Reform

Many Americans rightly expressed outrage at former President Donald Trump’s false claim during the presidential debate about immigrants abusing pets in Springfield, Ohio.  However, his statement should not be surprising.  Trump viciously attacked immigrants – especially immigrants of color -- in his 2016 presidential campaign, as President he aggressively pursued immigration enforcement targeting immigrants of color, and as a presidential candidate is currently campaigning on a promise to pursue an even more “bloody” immigration enforcement agenda in a second term as President.  Besides being hateful, his statements and deeds spark passions that make it less, not more, likely that the nation will address the real immigration policy challenges facing it.

Immigration is a challenging policy issue. To select an approach to managing migration in the 21st century, the nation needs calm discussion and studied analysis of the issues and how to best address them.  We need leaders who will help the nation better secure meaningful immigration reform.

Making false claims about Haitian migrants – who have lawful status in this country and helped revitalize a sagging local economy – will not assist us in thinking about how to best address immigration reform.  Nor will claiming that immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country,” as President Trump has, blaming crime on immigrants when the data shows that immigrants commit crime at lower rates than native-born citizens, and complaining about birthright citizenship, a constitutional requirement that has operated with Supreme Court approval for more than 125 years.

Although hateful and false statements about immigrants will not help the nation address the issues, they help distract us from the task at hand, stir up emotions, and drum up voters.  Trump and other politicians benefit politically from immigrant fear-mongering and have shaped the move toward more enforcement-oriented immigration policies.

Moreover, the hateful passion may take us down some dark, and regrettable, paths.  The Ku Klux Klan, which enjoyed a resurgence in the 1920s as a fraternal organization with community service and mainstream political activities as well as commitment to a campaign of hate against African Americans, had an immigration platform much like Donald Trump’s.   “America First” was the organizing principle and a white Anglo Saxon America was the goal.  The KKK campaigned for the Immigration Act of 1924, which created a discriminatory national origins quotas system that until 1965 restricted the admission of immigrants from southern and eastern Europe (including Jewish persons, Italians, and others).  A few years later, with Klan support, Congress passed the Undesirable Aliens Act of 1929, which targeted Mexican immigrants for prosecution of the crime of unlawful re-entry into the United States -- and in slightly different form remains the law to this day.

Former President Trump’s willingness to throw out falsehoods about immigrants abusing pets tells us the depths of his antipathy for immigrants of color.  Through the Muslim ban, separation of families at the border, and attacks on Salvadorans and Haitians as coming from “s---hole countries,” his administration pursued the return of a white Anglo Saxon America.  He apparently is willing to say anything – true or not -- to convince the nation that such a goal is worthy of support.

 On the 2024 campaign trail, former President Trump has promised a mass removal campaign that, in his words, will be “bloody.”  He has said that the new campaign will be modelled after “Operation Wetback” of 1954, a military style operation that led to the removal from the United States of in the neighborhood of one million persons of Mexican ancestry, including U.S. citizens as well as immigrants. 

Trump’s bloody removal campaign could be worse.   During the Great Depression of the 1930s, state, local, and federal agencies working together engaged in the so-called Mexican repatriation in which roughly one million persons who “looked” Mexican were picked up and placed on trains and buses destined for Mexico.  Many were U.S. citizen children.

It is not beyond belief that Trump would bring the nation a new Mexican repatriation.  In addition to attacking Mexican immigrants as “rapists” and “criminals,” Trump has advocated for all levels of government to work together in immigration enforcement. A crusade of governments purging persons of Mexican ancestry would fit in with Trump’s goal of a mass deportation campaign.

In sum, Donald Trump’s patently false statement about immigrants abusing pets in Ohio reveals much deeper anti-immigrant – indeed racist -- views that influence his entire approach to immigration.  Besides perhaps bringing forth draconian immigration policies, that political tactic distracts from the hard task of discussing what is needed in immigration reform.

KJ