President Donald Trump on Thursday defended his use of the word \u201canimals\u201d to describe some immigrants who enter the country illegally, saying he would continue to use the term to refer to violent gang members in spite of a sharp rebuke from Democratic leaders.<\/p>\n
Answering a reporter\u2019s question during a meeting with NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, Trump said his comment a day earlier had clearly been directed at members of the MS-13 gang.<\/p>\n
\u201cMS-13, these are animals coming onto our country,\u201d Trump said, repeating his language from Wednesday. He added: \u201cWhen the MS-13 comes in, when the other gang members come into our country, I refer to them as animals. And guess what? I always will.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trump has been under fire for comments he made Wednesday while railing against California for its so-called sanctuary immigration policies. Trump was speaking at a roundtable with local California officials when he responded to a comment that had referenced MS-13.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have people coming into the country, or trying to come in and we\u2019re stopping a lot of them,\u201d Trump said after Fresno County Sheriff Margaret Mims complained about state restrictions that limit cooperation with federal immigration authorities. \u201cYou wouldn\u2019t believe how bad these people are. These aren\u2019t people. These are animals.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trump has repeatedly referred to members of the violent street gang as \u201canimals\u201d in speeches, rallies and at White House events. He has also used the term to describe terrorists and school shooters.<\/p>\n
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., responded on Twitter to the president, saying, \u201cWhen all of our great-great-grandparents came to America they weren\u2019t \u2018animals,\u2019 and these people aren\u2019t either.\u201d<\/p>\n
And House Minority leader Nancy Pelosi said, \u201cEvery day that you think you\u2019ve seen it all, along comes another manifestation of why their policies are so inhumane.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mexico\u2019s foreign ministry sent a formal diplomatic letter to the U.S. State Department complaining that Trump\u2019s comments were \u201cabsolutely unacceptable.\u201d The foreign ministry released a statement saying such comments create a difficult climate for Mexicans living in the United States.<\/p>\n
But White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders defended the president\u2019s comments, arguing the word \u201canimals\u201d didn\u2019t go far enough.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is one of the most vicious and deadly gangs that operates by the motto of, \u2018Rape, control and kill,\u2019\u201c she said, adding that, \u201cIf the media and liberals want to defend MS-13, they\u2019re more than welcome to. Frankly, I don\u2019t think the term that the president used was strong enough.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trump was joined at the Wednesday White House meeting by mayors, sheriffs and other local leaders from California who oppose the state\u2019s immigration policies and who applauded his administration\u2019s hard-line efforts.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is your Republican resistance right here against what they\u2019re doing in California,\u201d said Assemblywoman Melissa Melendez, coopting a term used by Democrats opposed to Trump\u2019s presidency. She, like others, said the president and his policies were far more popular in the state than people realize.<\/p>\n
They were criticizing legislation Gov. Jerry Brown signed into law last year that bars police from asking people about their immigration status or helping federal agents with immigration enforcement. Jail officials can transfer inmates to federal immigration authorities if they have been convicted of one of about 800 crimes, mostly felonies, but not for minor offenses.<\/p>\n
Brown insists the legislation, which took effect Jan. 1, doesn\u2019t prevent federal immigration officials from doing their jobs. But the Trump administration has sued to reverse it, calling the policies unconstitutional and dangerous. Some counties, including San Diego and Orange, have voted to support the lawsuit or have passed their own anti-sanctuary resolutions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
President Donald Trump on Thursday defended his use of the word \u201canimals\u201d to describe some immigrants who enter the country illegally, saying he would continue to use the term to refer to violent gang members in spite of a sharp rebuke from Democratic leaders. Answering a reporter\u2019s question during a meeting with NATO Secretary-General Jens […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":31475,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31474","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31474","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31474"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31474\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31476,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31474\/revisions\/31476"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31475"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31474"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31474"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31474"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}