Several news reports on an event hosted by President Trump on illegal immigration misconstrued a portion of his remarks, in which he described certain violent immigrants as “animals.”
During a meeting Wednesday at the White House with elected officials from California, Trump commended the state’s law enforcement for their efforts in deporting illegal immigrants, gang members in particular. But he noted that so-called “sanctuary cities” in California prevent local police from cooperating with federal immigration authorities.
“And we’re suing on that, and we’re working hard, and I think it will all come together, because people want it to come together,” Trump said. “It’s so ridiculous. The concept that we’re even talking about is ridiculous. We’ll take care of it, Margaret. We’ll win.”
Margaret Mims is the sheriff for Fresno County.
“Thank you,” she said. “There could be an MS-13 member I know about — if they don’t reach a certain threshold, I cannot tell ICE about it.”
“You wouldn’t believe how bad these people are,” Trump replied. “These aren’t people. These are animals. And we’re taking them out of the country at a level and at a rate that’s never happened before.”
Though Trump’s remark about “animals” came after Mims had referenced the MS-13 gang, the members of which are known to hack up victims with machetes, some reports framed it as though Trump was speaking about immigrants in general.
“President Trump used extraordinarily harsh rhetoric to renew his call for stronger immigration laws Wednesday, calling undocumented immigrants ‘animals’ and venting frustration at Mexican officials who he said ‘do nothing’ to help the United States,” read the first line of USA Today’s article on the meeting.
The opening of a New York Times story said Trump “lashed out at undocumented immigrants during a White House meeting on Wednesday, warning in front of news cameras that dangerous people were clamoring to breach the country’s borders and branding such people ‘animals.’”
Eugene Scott, a political blogger for the Washington Post, wrote, “President Trump on Thursday pointedly referred to undocumented immigrants as ‘animals’” which stood to inspire “little sympathy” for their reasons coming into the U.S.
Other outlets like NPR more accurately noted that Trump was only referring to “some” illegal immigrants as animals, but White House adviser Kellyanne Conway said that “others,” including elected Democrats, who misrepresented the president’s comments should apologize.
“Others who rushed to judgment to get the President rather than to get the story owe [Trump] – and the grieving loved ones who have lost family members to gang violence – an apology,” she tweeted Thursday.
