Donald Trump, Republican presidential candidate and the former US president, said on Monday there are "a lot of bad genes" in the United States while discussing murders allegedly committed by illegal immigrants, reports Reuters.
"How about allowing people to come to an open border, 13,000 of which were murderers," Trump said in an interview.
"Many of them murdered far more than one person, and they're now happily living in the United States. You know, now a murderer, I believe this, it's in their genes. And we got a lot of bad genes in our country right now," further stated Mr Trump.
The migrants of the US have been a frequent target of Trump throughout his current and previous campaign. At times, he even used dehumanizing language to portray the immigrants.
Trump referred to a letter from Immigration and Customs Enforcement to Republican Representative Tony Gonzales, which showed that 13,099 people have been convicted of homicide who are on ICE's "non-detained docket." That docket includes various types of immigrants who entered the country legally and illegally.
However, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security said that those statistics are misleading.
"The data in this letter is being misinterpreted," the spokesperson wrote in an email. "The data goes back decades; it includes individuals who entered the country over the past 40 years or more, the vast majority of whose custody determination was made long before this Administration. It also includes many who are under the jurisdiction or currently incarcerated by federal, state, or local law enforcement partners."
However, defending his comments the Trump campaign said that he was speaking only about murderers, not immigrants.
"President Trump was clearly referring to murderers, not migrants," said Karoline Leavitt(Trump campaign press secretary). "It's pretty disgusting the media is always so quick to defend murderers, rapists, and illegal criminals if it means writing a bad headline about President Trump."
White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre condemned Trump's remarks.
"That type of language is hateful, it's disgusting, it's inappropriate and it has no place in our country," said Karine Jean-Pierre.
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