Trump blames immigrants with 'bad genes' for murders in US | Donald Trump news

The White House condemns the Republican candidate and former president's comments as “hateful” and “disgusting.”

Presidential candidate Donald Trump has caused an uproar with more anti-immigrant rhetoric, claiming that there are thousands of immigrants in the United States with murder convictions who spread “bad genes.”

Trump made the comments in a radio interview with conservative commentator Hugh Hewitt while criticizing the immigration policies of his Democratic challenger, Vice President Kamala Harris. He said 13,000 “murderers” had crossed the U.S.’s “open borders” and were living “happily” in the country.

“You know, being a murderer – I think that – is in their genes. We have a lot of bad genes in our country right now,” Trump told Hewitt.

Trump's claims falsifying U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) data were quickly condemned by the White House.

“This type of language is hateful, disgusting, inappropriate and has no place in our country,” said White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre.

Other critics said it followed a long history of the Republican presidential candidate “scapegoating” migrants and exploiting racial prejudice.

“It’s just a way for him (and by extension some of his supporters) to feel superior to the immigrants he scapegoats,” wrote Washington Post columnist Philip Bump.

“Overtones of Nazi Germany,” wrote former US ambassador and political analyst Michael McFaul.

Data released by ICE in September showed that there were 13,099 people with murder convictions on ICE's “non-detained file.” However, many of them are not free but in state or federal prisons. Others entered the United States years or decades ago.

Demonization of migrants

Trump, who is running neck-and-neck with Harris in key battleground states ahead of November's presidential election, has focused on immigration during the campaign, demonizing both illegal and legal immigrants.

During a rally last month, the 78-year-old former reality TV actor said Harris should be prosecuted over the White House's border policies and called undocumented immigrants “animals” to “rape, loot, steal, loot and kill.” “.

“They will come into your kitchen and cut your throat,” he said.

Trump also threatened to deport Haiti's legal residents and repeated discredited claims that they were eating family pets in Ohio.

Trump – the oldest major party nominee for the White House in history and the first convicted felon to run – accused immigrants in December of “poisoning the blood of our country,” a phrase that earned him comparisons to Adolf Hitler.

Immigration is a hot-button issue for many voters in the United States, where illegal border crossings reached record levels in late 2023.