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Jake Hall
May 26, 2018
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Getty Images / Chip Somodevilla / Staff
Donald Trump's hostility towards immigrants and tendencies to exaggerate or entirely fabricate statistics are well-documented.
Just two months ago, the US resident changed the topic during a discussion of tax reform to defend an earlier claim that immigrants are 'rapists'.
In order to prove his point, he made up reports of sexual assault on a 'refugee caravan' that transpired to actually be a mobile protest. The irony? They were fighting to raise awareness of the country's institutional discrimination against asylum seekers.
Now, a new, explosive report laden with alleged details of further nasty rhetoric has emerged, as reported by The Washington Post.
The report - conceived as a commentary on tensions between Trump and US Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen - claims that the presidents wanted to include made-up criminals with Hispanic names, all of whom he would describe as perpetrators of horrific crimes, in his first speech to Congress.
Allegedly, the aim was to incite crowd frenzy and win support for his harsh stance on immigration.
Citing sources, the paper reads:
Acting as if he was at a rally, he then read aloud a few made-up Hispanic names and described potential crimes they could have committed, like rape or murder.
Then, he said, the crowds would roar when the immigrants were thrown out of the country.
The White House confirmed to The Washington Post that the preparations for the speech did aim to create "crowd enthusiasm for crackdowns on criminal aliens", but denied that he used fabricated names.
After his performance, Trump then took on suggestions from aides to dial down the incendiary rhetoric that immigrants are rapists, drug dealers and murderers.
Hispanic immigrants aren't the only demographic which has been arguably scapegoated by the president.
The opening months of his presidency were plagued with controversy surrounding a travel ban which became known the 'Muslim ban'. This mention of faith pushed his proposals away from logic and into state-sanctioned discrimination which is, of course, unconstitutional - and was declared as such by an appeals court.
Furthermore, it was bad policy: none of the countries listed in the proposals which supposedly aim to crack down on terrorism had spawned perpetrators of recent US terror attacks. In fact, most perpetrators have been American.
Incidentally, Trump's presidency has also seen a huge rise in school shootings and domestic terrorism, much of which is carried out by white, far-right nationalists.
indy100 has contacted the White House for comment.
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