Trump defends his infamous Mexican 'rapists' comment during rambling speech

Remember when Trump referred to Mexican immigrants as “rapists” during his presidential announcement speech back in 2015? Well, he still stands by it.

This week, at a West Virginia roundtable dedicated to tax reform discussions, the President revived the inflammatory claim and once again sought to justify it.

Remember my opening remarks at Trump Tower? Everyone said, ‘Oh, he was so tough.' I used the word 'rape'.

Yesterday it came out [that, on] this journey coming up, women are raped at levels that nobody has ever seen before. They don’t want to mention that. So we have to change our laws.

The tangential comments were made in reference to caravans of refugees reported to be travelling to the U.S. border. They are also based on entirely unfounded evidence – as The Washington Post highlighted, there have been no official reports of any kind of rape epidemic on the caravan. In fact, an official White House statement, cited in the aforementioned Washington Post article, linked a report published in 2014. So, not exactly 'yesterday' as he stated, and certainly not in reference to the specific caravans he was discussing.

As is usually the case, the president took to Twitter to post an incoherent rant berating the asylum seekers, whom he claims were forced to disband by Mexican immigration officers. He also insinuates that they’re drug traffickers – again, based on no actual evidence.

What he seems to have missed is the fact that the ‘refugee caravans’ are actually a form of mobile protest organised annually by Pueblo Sin Fronteras, a humanitarian collective seeking to highlight systemic discrimination levelled against asylum seekers in the United States.

Each year, migrants fleeing violence in their respective countries gather together, bundle into these caravans and travel to Mexico City. The journey itself is intended as a protest, as evidenced in a video statement published by Splinter News. Speaking in Spanish, a spokesperson outlines the collective’s intent:

We are a group of migrants and refugees of different nationalities, religions, and representations of sexual and gender diversity.

We have come together in order to work as a team to defend our rights as migrants and refugees. We want to become one by supporting ourselves side by side, and demonstrating that together we can knock down borders.

According to the UN Refugee Agency, widespread gang violence has transformed Central America’s ‘Northern Triangle’ – El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras – into one of the most dangerous pockets of the world, forcing more citizens than ever to flee to surrounding countries in the hopes of finding safety.

Not only do the asylum seekers in the caravan seek to highlight these crises, they also intend to exercise their legal rights by going to a U.S. port of entry to request asylum. Still, reports claim that 400 members of the caravan have been deported by the Mexican government. Representatives for Pueblos Sin Fronteras denied these claims, although they have confirmed that the caravan has dispersed into smaller groups – which, according to CNN, has always been the case.

Trump’s apparent concern for victims of violence is also surprising given the recent announcement made by attorney general Jeff Sessions. Speaking in vague terms, he claimed that he would be re-evaluating current U.S. asylum policy on survivors of domestic violence. Although extremely general, his statement is concerning; if current rules were reversed, it would mean that people fleeing domestic violence in their home countries would no longer qualify for asylum in the U.S.

Not only is Trump’s repeated typecasting of Hispanic immigrants as ‘rapists’ harmful and based on no evidence, it detracts from what could be productive conversations about the actual sexual violence these refugees are fleeing. Ironically, the online furore has at least raised awareness of Pueblos Sin Fronteras and its urgent mission, which can be discovered in more detail here.

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