The impending presidential election has highlighted an array of hot-button issues in the U.S., including Mexican immigration. Donald Trump has been a surprise frontrunner for the Republican nomination. Trump’s incredible lack of political experience has actually won him votes due to his seemingly bi-partisan view on government. Trump has also gained widespread notoriety and media coverage due to his politically unorthodox and outlandish comments. Although Trump may just be saying whatever he needs to in order to win, Trump’s racist and anti-Semitic pitch is emblematic of of America’s historical stance on immigrants.
In Trump’s announcement of his presidential candidacy in 2015, he inspired many of his followers while simultaneously outraging countless people around the world with his extraordinarily harmful stereotype of Mexican immigrants. While touching on Mexico, Trump said, “They’re bringing drugs, they’re bring crime, they’re rapists.” Trump is honing in on the racist sentiments that remain a part of our culture. The main feature of his immigration plan for Mexico is to build an obscenely large fence along the boarder and force Mexico to pay for it. Despite meeting massive opposition from many Mexican and American citizens, Trump’s sometimes ludicrous rants actually appeal to large segment of America’s politically conservative population.
Trump’s message was originally broadcast by the conservative news outlet, Fox News. It was rebroadcasted by a number of American news syndicates on both ends of the political spectrum. Trump was pandering to his conservative constituents and attempting to gain as much media attention as possible. Trump’s candidacy announcement will provide future historians with a glimpse into the extreme contrast which makes-up current U.S. politics, and the polarizing division of voters and parties. It also serves as a historical reminder, that even in 2015, racist and anti-immigrant views are alive and well in the United States. Trump makes sweeping generalizations of all Mexican immigrants. His proposals on immigration and deportation are reminiscent of the early stages of the Jewish genocide conducted by the Nazi’s, which began with similar philosophies of ethnic cleansing.
Trump’s attacks on Mexico comes amidst historic changes in immigration numbers, which he has conveniently not mentioned. In an article posted by the Migration Policy Institute in May 2015, written by Muzaffar Chishti and Faye Hipsman, the Institute announced that for the first time, migrants coming to the U.S. from India and China, outnumbered immigrants from Mexico. The article mentions, “The shift in top migration source countries is remarkable because it happened so rapidly. Less than a decade ago, recent immigrants from Mexico outnumbered those from China and India, each by sixfold. Even as Chinese and Indian migration has risen steadily, Mexican flows have declined much more swiftly” (MPI, WEB).
The recent immigration numbers are believed to have been influenced by the U.S. recession and stricter immigration policies and Mexico’s lower birth rate, improved economy and education system. Trump’s appalling generalization of Mexican immigrants is not only baseless, but it’s not correct. Trump has embraced America’s deep rooted tradition of anti-immigrant sentiment, attacking virtually all minority groups and religions outside of the Anglo-Christian norm, further perpetuating the oppression of Mexican American’s and Mexican immigrants in the U.S.
-Joseph Foley