News Desk |
Shireen Mazari, PTI’s Human Rights minister, has recently condemned US President Donald Trump for his racist and xenophobic statements about a group of migrant Congresswomen who he labelled “progressive Democrat congresswomen”.
https://twitter.com/ShireenMazari1/status/1150980518550396928
US President Donald Trump drew fresh accusations of racism Monday after he attacked four ethnic-minority Democrats in Congress, telling them to “go back” where they came from.
It is the latest controversial comment by Trump, who last year reportedly referred to countries in Africa as “shithole” nations, and who has spoken of “an invasion” of undocumented migrants.
In a tweet, Trump referred to “‘Progressive’ Democrat Congresswomen,” which appeared to be a reference to a group of outspoken relatively young, liberal women, all first-time members of the House of Representatives.
These include Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Minnesota Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan.
#Trump used racist language on Sunday to attack Democratic congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez, falsely implying she’s not a natural-born American citizen and suggested, "they go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came." ‼️🚨#uaccessmagazine pic.twitter.com/4TK7Rs42JC
— UAccessOnline (@infouaccessmag) July 15, 2019
Trump did not say whom he was referring to but said they “originally came from countries whose governments are a complete and total catastrophe, the worst, most corrupt and inept anywhere in the world.”
He accused the congresswomen of “viciously telling the people of the United States, the greatest and most powerful Nation on earth, how our government is to be run.
“Why don’t they go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came”?
Ocasio-Cortez, who was born in New York, has ancestry from Puerto Rico, a US territory.
Tlaib, who was born in Detroit, is the first American of Palestinian descent elected to Congress.
Omar, who fled war-torn Somalia as a child and came to the United States as a refugee, is the first black Muslim woman in Congress.
Trump: a history of inflammatory and ‘racist’ statements
While Trump denies he is racist, he has a long history of political pandering to white suspicions about other ethnic groups, which many believe helped him win electoral victory in 2016 and which could be important in the election next year.
Trump made fighting immigration a key plank of his election platform, and told supporters in speeches that migrants from US neighbor Mexico are “drug smugglers and rapists.”
“They’re bringing drugs, they’re bringing crime, they are rapists, and some, I assume, are good people,” he said in a campaign speech.
After becoming president, he defended his border policies in similar terms.
“You wouldn’t believe how bad these people are, these aren’t people, these are animals,” he said of the migrants.
Muslims in America
Trump also campaigned on instituting a ban on entries by Muslims, rooted in a long history of attacking Islam.
In 2015 he claimed, falsely, that “thousands and thousands” of Muslims in New Jersey cheered after the 9/11 attacks on New York.
During the 2016 campaign he assailed the parents of Captain Humayun Khan, a Muslim US soldier killed in Iraq, after Khan’s father criticized the billionaire White House candidate.
“If you look at his wife, she was standing there, she had nothing to say, she probably — maybe she wasn’t allowed to have anything to say, you tell me,” he said.
In the 2016 race he promised “a complete and total shutdown of Muslims entering the United States.”
Read more: Pakistan submits six-point plan in UN to reduce Islamophobia, racism
After he won election, Trump placed a sweeping ban on arrivals from several Muslim countries and slashed the number of refugees the country would accept, especially from Syria.
Shithole countries
In a private January 2018 White House meeting, Trump made clear he preferred migrants from white Western European countries.
“Why are we having all these people from shithole countries come here?” Trump asked, pointing to African countries, Haiti and El Salvador.
“Why do we need more Haitians? Take them out,” he said.
“We should have more people from places like Norway,” he added.