Trump tells white Fox News host that immigrants who should be barred from US don’t have ‘your genetics’
[Source]
President Donald Trump told white “Fox & Friends” host Brian Kilmeade during a call on immigration on Friday that immigrants don’t have “your genetics.” He paired the statement with claims that immigrants entering the United States are criminals and should be prevented. By linking criminal behavior to biology, Trump’s comments He argued that there was a fundamental racial divide between immigrants and white Americans.
Trump’s eugenics language
In answering questions about violence involving individuals who identify as Muslims, Trump argued that some “shouldn’t have been allowed in” while others “went bad.” “They’re sick people, and most of them were allowed in here. They shouldn’t have been allowed in,” he said, adding, “The others are very bad. They’re doing badly. Something’s wrong; something’s wrong there.”
He later attributed this behavior to biology, saying: “Genetics isn’t exactly your genetics, it’s one of those problems, Brian. It’s a terrible thing and it happens, it happens so often” and attributes criminality to inherited traits rather than individual actions or circumstances.
Trending on NextShark: Trump tells white Fox News host that immigrants who should be banned from entering the US do not have ‘your genetics’
The language reflects a basic idea associated with: eugenicsThe long-disproved belief that social outcomes such as crime or behavior are determined by genetics and vary between groups. This framework has historically shaped exclusionary immigration policies and was a defining feature of Nazi racial ideology under Adolf Hitler, where genetic difference was used to legitimize hierarchy and exclusion.
Doesn’t hide white supremacy
Trump’s comments sparked criticism from policy analysts and journalists, much of whom focused on his use of genetics to identify immigrants and its historical consequences.
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David J. Bier, director of immigration studies at the Cato Institute, wrote that the language reflects ideas that have shaped U.S. immigration restrictions in the past, saying: “Trump is an old-school eugenicist nativist. He’s actually good with immigrants as long as they have the right ‘genes.'”
Noting what he described as a contradiction in Trump’s framing, journalist Alex Cole wrote of
Journalist Mehdi Hasan made a more direct definition: “He is a white supremacist. He does not hide it.”
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The history of rhetoric that appeals to “blood” and genetics
Trump’s mention of “genetics” builds on years of rhetoric describing immigrants as threats defined by identity and, more recently, genes.
Trump framed immigration in terms of crime as he launched his first presidential campaign in 2015: explaining Mexican immigrants as “rapists” bringing “drugs” and “crime” to the U.S. This framing established a core argument that focused on behavior and threat. multiple times as president in 2020 shipped Researchers and scientists then documented rise In anti-Asian hate incidents.
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By 2023, his discourse had shifted more explicitly towards heredity. Trump at multiple campaign events in question Immigrants were “poisoning the blood of our country,” which historians and analysts say parallels previous exclusionary ideologies. This statement closely echoes passages in Hitler’s Mein Kampf, which initially warned of national decline through “blood poisoning.”
While some Trump supporters dismiss comparisons to the Nazi leader as exaggerated, the overlap extends beyond rhetoric, as the use of biolanguage has been paired with policies such as restrictions and bans on immigration from Muslim-majority countries, expanded asylum borders at the southern border, and large-scale policies. deportation proceedingsaggressive ICE enforcement actionsimmigrant detention facilities exposed to criticism due to the conditions and efforts denaturalization from some naturalized Americans, among others.
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