{"id":616091,"date":"2025-12-06T14:28:14","date_gmt":"2025-12-06T14:28:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/616091\/"},"modified":"2025-12-06T14:28:14","modified_gmt":"2025-12-06T14:28:14","slug":"from-criminals-to-garbage-trump-is-ramping-up-anti-immigrant-language-us-immigration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/616091\/","title":{"rendered":"From \u2018criminals\u2019 to \u2018garbage\u2019, Trump is ramping up anti-immigrant language | US immigration"},"content":{"rendered":"

Donald Trump and senior members of his administration have dramatically escalated their hostile language towards immigrants in the US after anAfghan man was named a suspect in last week\u2019s shooting<\/a> of two national guard members in Washington DC.<\/p>\n

In recent days, the US president has made sweeping statements, claiming<\/a> that there were \u201ca lot of problems with Afghans\u201d, and went on a tirade<\/a> against Somali immigrants, calling them \u201cgarbage\u201d whose country of origin \u201cstinks\u201d.<\/p>\n

Critics have described the recent derogatory remarks as \u201calarming\u201d, \u201cawful\u201d, \u201cdehumanizing\u201d and \u201cvile\u201d.<\/p>\n

Just hours after the shooting, and after authorities reported<\/a> that the suspect had arrived in the US in 2021 through a Biden-era evacuation program<\/a> for Afghans and was later granted asylum under the Trump administration, the US president declared<\/a>: \u201cWe must now re-examine every single alien from Afghanistan who has entered our country under Biden.\u201d<\/p>\n

JD Vance took up the baton<\/a> when he commented on the shooting.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will first bring the shooter to justice, and then we must redouble our efforts to deport people with no right to be in our country,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Several other Republican lawmakers went even further. The US senator Tommy Tuberville of Alabama called<\/a> via X for an immediate ban on \u201call ISLAM immigrants\u201d and to \u201cDEPORT every single Islamist who is living among us just waiting to attack\u201d, while Texas congressman Chip Roy urged the administration<\/a> to \u201cstop importing Islamists. Deport Islamists. Reject Sharia law. Defend our Western Civilization.\u201d<\/p>\n

That evening, US Citizenship and Immigration Services announced an immediate suspension of all<\/a> immigration requests relating to Afghan nationals \u201cindefinitely pending further review of security and vetting protocols\u201d.<\/p>\n

Over Thanksgiving, Trump vowed to strip US citizenship from naturalized immigrants \u201cwho undermine domestic tranquility\u201d<\/a>, said he would \u201cpermanently pause migration from all third-world countries\u201d and deport \u201cany Foreign national\u201d deemed \u201cnon-compatible with Western Civilization\u201d.<\/p>\n

When pressed by a reporter during Thanksgiving remarks<\/a> on whether he was blaming all Afghans for one man\u2019s actions, Trump replied: \u201cNo, but we\u2019ve had a lot of problems with Afghans\u201d, adding: \u201cMany of these people are criminals.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the same address, Trump turned his attention to Somali immigrants, whom he has increasingly targeted<\/a> in recent weeks after reports<\/a> of government fraud<\/a> among pockets of Minnesota\u2019s large Somali population \u2013 the largest Somali community in the US, most of whom are US citizens or legal permanent residents.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you look at Somalia, they\u2019re taking over Minnesota,\u201d Trump said. Asked what Somalis had to do with the DC shooting, he responded<\/a>: \u201cNothing, but Somalians have caused a lot of trouble.\u201d<\/p>\n

He singled out Democratic representative Ilhan Omar of Minnesota \u2013 who came to the US from Somalia as a refugee<\/a> when she was a child and became a US citizen in 2000<\/a> when she was 17 \u2013 accusing her, without evidence, of having \u201cprobably\u201d entered the US illegally, and said she is \u201calways wrapped in her swaddling hijab\u201d.<\/p>\n

Then, in a cabinet meeting on Tuesday, Trump described<\/a> Somali immigrants as \u201cgarbage\u201d who \u201ccontribute nothing\u201d. He added: \u201cTheir country is no good for a reason. Their country stinks. We don\u2019t want them in our country.\u201d<\/p>\n

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt called the remarks an \u201cepic moment<\/a>\u201d.<\/p>\n

Omar called Trump\u2019s remarks \u201cvile\u201d, while saying they were not a surprise. She also hit back<\/a> with an essay in the New York Times on Thursday saying Trump is lashing out at her and her community with bigotry because he \u201cknows he is failing\u201d.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the homeland security secretary Kristi Noem endorsed what she called<\/a> \u201ca full travel ban on every damn country that\u2019s been flooding our nation with killers, leeches and entitlement junkies\u201d.<\/p>\n

The administration\u2019s intensified rhetoric has been accompanied by further restrictions on immigration, including halting the ability<\/a> of Afghans to obtain US visas, pausing <\/a>immigration applications filed by immigrants from 19 non-European countries<\/a> and halting all asylum decisions.<\/p>\n

Administration officials have also said<\/a> that there will be an \u201cincrease\u201d in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) activity in Minnesota.<\/p>\n

Top White House adviser Stephen Miller defended the various sweeping measures, dismissing an editorial by the Wall Street Journal arguing that \u201cthe alleged shooting by an Afghan \u2018partner\u2019 shouldn\u2019t condemn all who assisted the US [military mission in Afghanistan] and now live here\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the great lie of mass migration,\u201d Miller wrote<\/a> on X. \u201cYou are not just importing individuals. You are importing societies. No magic transformation occurs when failed states cross borders. At scale, migrants and their descendants recreate the conditions, and terrors, of their broken homelands.\u201d<\/p>\n

In response to the intensifying anti-immigrant rhetoric and new restrictions in the wake of the shooting, Democratic lawmakers and immigration advocates have accused <\/a>the administration of using the tragedy to advance it\u2019s anti-immigrant policies, and have warned that xenophobic rhetoric \u201ccreates danger<\/a>\u201d and could lead to violence.<\/p>\n

Church World Service, a faith-based group that helps resettle refugees, issued a statement<\/a> denouncing what it described as the administration\u2019s \u201ccampaign of collective punishment\u201d after the shooting.<\/p>\n

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In a joint statement<\/a> this week, several Democratic lawmakers described Trump\u2019s comments as \u201cxenophobic and unacceptable\u201d.<\/p>\n

Susan Benesch, the executive director of the Dangerous Speech Project, a research group that studies speech that can inspire violence<\/a>, said that xenophobic language was not new for Trump.<\/p>\n

But what stood out to her this time was the \u201cvirtual silence from [other] Republicans\u201d objecting to the rhetoric. When Trump described several African nations, as well as Haiti and El Salvador in 2018 as \u201cshithole countries\u201d<\/a>, a number of Republicans condemned the<\/a> remarks.<\/p>\n

Benesch said the rhetoric over the last week was \u201calarming and awful\u201d. She said Trump\u2019s \u201cgarbage\u201d remark was a \u201cclassic form of dehumanization\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you use dehumanizing, degrading and frightening rhetoric about groups of people, and then you also take significant policy decisions against them, then those decisions reinforce the impact of the language,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Lynne Tirrell, who specializes in the intersections of language with social and political philosophy at the University of Connecticut, described Trump\u2019s statements as \u201creckless speech\u201d. Trump\u2019s rhetoric, she says, \u201clicenses\u201d people to go ahead and call \u201cSomalis garbage because the president said it\u201d, and it \u201cseeps into the culture\u201d in a way that \u201clicenses everyday, ordinary people to use this language\u201d and to possibly \u201cfollow through with non-linguistic behaviors of how you treat garbage\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat, to me, is terrifying,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

On the ground in Minnesota, Dieu Do, a community organizer with the Minnesota Immigrant Rights Action Committee, said that she has already seen a spike in panic and fear among Somali residents and a noticeable uptick in ICE<\/a> operations in the state in recent days.<\/p>\n

The leaders\u2019 rhetoric, she said, is placing a \u201cvery clear and visible target on the backs of not only Somali immigrants, but immigrant communities from the African diaspora, and also all immigrant communities\u201d.<\/p>\n

Shawn VanDiver, CEO of #AfghanEvac, said many Afghan refugees in the US that he has spoken to are afraid to leave their homes and feeling \u201cterrified\u201d and \u201cattacked\u201d.<\/p>\n

Jeff Joseph, president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA), said the administration\u2019s claims of concerns around \u201cimproper vetting\u201d of Afghan refugees \u201cjust ignores the reality of the immigration situation\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cHaving represented individuals who have gone through the Afghan process, the special immigrant process, they are vetted by the US military, they\u2019re vetted by the Department of Justice, they fill applications out and go through biometrics processing,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Joseph said that, in general, he supports continuing to look at and finding ways to improve vetting procedures but said that is not what the new policies do.<\/p>\n

Instead, he said, the administration is targeting entire countries \u201cwith a sledgehammer\u201d and pausing applications for asylum \u201cnot based on targeted intelligence\u201d but simply based on where people were born.<\/p>\n

AILA\u2019s executive director, Ben Johnson, also weighed in, warning<\/a>: \u201cWeaponizing this tragedy to advance an anti-immigrant agenda is not only unjust, but also dangerous.\u201d<\/p>\n

When asked for comment about the various criticisms of the administration\u2019s recent remarks and policies, a White House spokesperson reiterated the claim that the Afghan suspect, whom they referred to as an \u201canimal\u201d, would not have been here if not for Joe Biden\u2019s policies and said that Trump was \u201cabsolutely right to highlight the problems caused by the radical Somali migrants\u201d.<\/p>\n