WASHINGTON - US President Donald Trump renewed his attacks Sunday on four Democratic congresswomen he launched xenophobic tweets against last week, demanding they apologize "for the horrible (hateful) things they have said."
"I don't believe the four Congresswomen are capable of loving our Country," Trump tweeted of ethnic-minority first-term Democrats Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar and Ayanna Pressley.
"They should apologize to America (and Israel) for the horrible (hateful) things they have said. They are destroying the Democrat Party, but are weak & insecure people who can never destroy our great Nation!" the president tweeted.
The comments come a week after Trump sparked a firestorm of outrage when he attacked the left-leaning lawmakers in a series of tweets, saying they should "go back" to their countries of origin.
The group -- all American citizens, three of whom were born in the United States -- are of Hispanic, Arab, Somali and African-American descent.
In a rare move, Trump was rebuked by the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives on Tuesday for "racist comments" against the women, who are known as the "Squad."
The following day chants of "Send her back!" broke out at the president's "Make America Great Again" rally in Greenville, North Carolina, when he again attacked the women.
Trump claimed falsely that Omar had said the terrorist organization Al-Qaeda made her "proud" and he described the congresswomen as "left-wing ideologues (who) see our nation as a force of evil."
SPEECH PAUSED FOR CHANTS
Trump later said there was "great energy" at the rally but claimed he was not pleased by the taunts.
"I was not happy when I heard that chant," he said. "I didn't like that they did it, and I started speaking quickly" to move on with his speech.
Television footage showed, however, that Trump let the chants continue for more than 13 seconds, only resuming speaking as they died down.
Analysts say the president's performance in Greenville demonstrated that without a Democratic presidential candidate to focus on yet, he plans to make inflammatory attacks on the Squad a centerpiece of his 2020 reelection strategy.
Two days after the rally he falsely accused the congresswomen of using the phrase "evil Jews," and Ocasio-Cortez in particular of calling Americans "garbage."
Several of the Democratic presidential hopefuls who plan to run against him and a few Republicans have urged Trump to tone down the rhetoric.
Ron Johnson, a Republican senator from Wisconsin and the chair of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, said Sunday he didn't agree that the congresswomen were incapable of loving their country.
"I find it unfortunate so many parts of our public debate are getting stuck inside a racial framework when what I would like to see is us moving toward that color-blind society," he told CNN's "State of the Union."
'DIVIDE OUR COUNTRY'
But the president has made it clear -- despite the risk of inflaming racial tensions and widening the partisan divide -- that he believes he has latched onto a winning strategy.
Trump tapped into grievances among white blue-collar and rural Americans to eke out a narrow victory in 2016, winning 57 percent of white voters while his rival Hillary Clinton won 37 percent.
Democratic congressman Elijah Cummings, the African-American chairman of the House Oversight Committee, told ABC's "This Week" that the "send her back" chants reminded him of painful experiences fighting segregation in the 1960s.
"It's extremely divisive and I don't think this is becoming of the president of the United States of America, the leader of the entire world. We can do better than that."
He added that the congresswomen targeted by Trump "love their country" and work hard to move closer to the "perfect union that our founding fathers talked about."
He said he had "no doubt" Trump was a racist, a charge rejected by White House senior policy advisor Stephen Miller.
"I fundamentally disagree with the view that if you criticize somebody, and they happen to be a different color skin, that that makes it racial criticism," Miller told "Fox News Sunday."
Senator Corey Booker, a candidate for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, meanwhile told CBS's "Face the Nation" that he was accusing Trump of being "worse than" a racist.
"He is somebody that is using race like a weapon to divide our country against itself," Booker said.
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WASHINGTON - The US House of Representatives formally condemned Donald Trump on Tuesday for xenophobic attacks on four minority Democratic lawmakers and hostile language targeting immigrants, as the president pushed back at accusations of racism.
Top Republican leaders rallied around Trump, but four members of the president's party voted with the 235 Democrats to condemn him for "racist comments that have legitimized and increased fear and hatred of new Americans and people of color."
One independent lawmaker also supported the measure, which takes aim at Trump's weekend tweets telling a group of progressive Democratic congresswomen of color to "go back" to other countries.
The resolution also takes the president to task for "referring to immigrants and asylum seekers as 'invaders.'"
Trump has a long history of political pandering to white suspicions about other ethnic groups, and the resolution criticizes him for "saying that Members of Congress who are immigrants (or those of our colleagues who are wrongly assumed to be immigrants) do not belong in Congress or in the United States of America."
Democrats hold a majority in the 435-member House but are outnumbered by Republicans in the Senate, where the resolution is unlikely to be considered.
The four congresswomen -- all but one of whom were born in the US -- are of Hispanic, Arab, Somali and African-American descent.
Trump stuck by the provocative comments Monday and again Tuesday.
"Our Country is Free, Beautiful and Very Successful. If you hate our Country, or if you are not happy here, you can leave!" the president tweeted.
Democratic leaders denounced Trump's remarks, and rallied round the lawmakers -- Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar and Ayanna Pressley.
Omar is the only one born outside the United States.
Slamming the "so-called vote" as a "Democrat con game," Trump urged his fellow Republicans not to "show 'weakness' and fall into their trap."
"Those Tweets were NOT Racist. I don't have a Racist bone in my body!" Trump said.
"This should be a vote on the filthy language, statements and lies told by the Democrat Congresswomen, who I truly believe, based on their actions, hate our Country," the president wrote.
"Nancy Pelosi tried to push them away, but now they are forever wedded to the Democrat Party," Trump added, in a jab at the House speaker who has had a tenuous relationship with the four left-leaning first-term congresswomen.
Speaking on the House floor prior to the vote, Pelosi said: "Every single member of this institution, Democratic and Republican, should join us in condemning the president's racist tweets.
"To do anything less would be a shocking rejection of our values and a shameful abdication of our oath of office to protect the American people."
- 'All about politics' -
Trump's repeated attacks appear to be aimed at galvanizing his mostly white electoral base ahead of the 2020 presidential vote -- while also stoking divisions among his political opponents.
"See you in 2020!" said Trump, who before becoming president pushed the racist "birther" conspiracy theory that Barack Obama was not born in the United States.
Ocasio-Cortez responded on Twitter to Trump's denial that he is a racist.
"You're right, Mr. President -- you don't have a racist bone in your body," she said. "You have a racist mind in your head, and a racist heart in your chest."
While some Republican members of Congress have condemned Trump's remarks, House Republican leaders closed ranks behind the president.
"This is all about politics," said House Republican minority leader Rep. Kevin McCarthy of California.
Senator Mitch McConnell, the leader of the Republican majority in the Senate, said "the president is not a racist."
"From the president to the speaker, to the freshmen members of the House, all of us have a responsibility to elevate the public discourse," McConnell said. "Our words do matter."
Immediately after the House vote a Democratic congressman, Al Green of Texas, filed articles of impeachment against Trump.
Dozens of other Democratic members of the House have reportedly called for an impeachment inquiry to be opened against the president but Pelosi, the House speaker, has said she does not favor such a move at the moment.
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source: news.abs-cbn.com
"Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free": The words on the Statue of Liberty have beckoned comers to the "Nation of Immigrants" for more than a century.
But not with President Donald Trump at the gate.
Unlike any US leader in decades, Trump has attacked immigration, slashed legal arrivals, called to expel millions of non-citizens, and invited only wealthy and educated foreigners -- with an evident preference for white Europeans.
On Thursday, Trump allegedly demanded to know why the US accepted people from "shithole" places like Haiti and Africa, and suggested the country should instead draw immigrants from Norway.
It's a sharp turn for a country that defines itself by its open door and its "melting pot" culture.
- Immigrants were 'threats' -
But historians say US history is pockmarked by immigration backlashes and a constant ambivalence by well-established Americans over whether they want to continue being an immigrant country.
"When you look at the whole history of the United States, one of the most striking aspects of it is the ways in which the debate over immigration has been racialized," said Julie Greene, a professor of history at the University of Maryland.
In 1790 the Naturalization Act aimed to keep blacks from becoming citizens; the Alien Act of 1798 targeted French; The Page Act of 1875 prohibited Asian labor migrants; and in 1924 a sweeping new immigration act took aim at southern and eastern Europeans, largely composed of Catholics and Jews.
"There was tremendous anti-immigration sentiment throughout the 19th century. At different points in American history, different types of immigrants were considered threats to the United States," said Allan Lichtman, a political historian and professor at American University.
- Massive wave spurred backlash -
Before Trump, Warren Harding made anti-immigration the main plank in his successful 1920 presidential campaign.
Harding came to power after a 40-year boom in which about 22 million immigrants poured into the country, and Americans were worried that the latest wave of southern and eastern Europeans -- largely Jews and Catholics -- would introduce inferior "races" into the country and spearhead Bolshevism.
"Similar to Trump, he portrayed himself as an America-first president," Lichtman said.
The country wrestled with smaller waves over the subsequent decades.
During the depression of the 1930s, there was a backlash against the influx of Mexicans that the 1924 law had given rise to. After World War II came a movement to stem the arrival of refugees.
In 1965 the quota system which favored northern Europeans was eliminated. Authorities sought to encourage the arrival of people with skills and educations and also to allow more family reunification -- what Trump has labeled "chain migration".
As a result, legal immigration soared to one million people a year, a large percentage of them Asian, while illegal immigration from Mexico leapt.
In 1986 President Ronald Reagan offered amnesty to 3.2 million illegal immigrants, but that failed to stem illegal border crossers.
Four years later, President George HW Bush took aim at the lopsided arrivals from Asia with the Green Card lottery, which aimed at diversifying arrivals across the globe.
- Economic upheaval, terror attacks -
But by the 2000s anti-immigration sentiment arose anew. It had multiple roots.
The September 11, 2001 and subsequent attacks that have focused fears on Muslims, whose presence surged with the lottery system, was one.
Another was the deep change in the structure of the economy, which disrupted communities around the country.
A third was demographic change that left white people a minority in an increasing number of communities around the country.
"Very rapid growth in immigration does sometimes lead to pushback," said Andrew Selee, president of the Migration Policy Institute.
"We are at a point where America's becoming a more diverse society in ways that many Americans are not accustomed to."
With illegal immigrants reaching 12 million, mostly from Mexico and Central America, both presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama tried to stem the flow while attempting to give many a legal path to citizenship.
Yet neither, point out historians, made immigration a political issue like Trump did to win election in 2016.
"Trump very neatly among modern presidents has sought to exploit that for political purposes," said Lichtman. "There is a strong minority anti-immigrant sentiment that Trump tapped into. It's not the majority sentiment."
Unlike anyone since Harding, historians said, Trump made a clear political calculus aimed at whites discomfited by economic and demographic shifts.
"It's easy to generate anxieties about this," Greene said.
"He's definitely more extreme and he's definitely using a kind of dog-whistle racial language, different from the last two presidents."
source: news.abs-cbn.com
