Donald Trump is once again stirring controversy after proposing that undocumented immigrants carry a genetic propensity toward committing grave crimes.
The former president and current Republican candidate for the 2024 presidential race appeared on the “Hugh Hewitt Show” to mark the first anniversary of the Hamas-led assault on Israel, which sparked a brutal and ongoing genocide that has claimed more than 41,000 Palestinian lives.
Trump touched on various international affairs topics while delivering a string of criticisms aimed at President Joe Biden and Trump’s current rival, Kamala Harris. In the realm of immigration policy, he targeted the vice president, suggesting that her approach would “fundamentally rely on government relief” and push the nation toward “a system resembling communism.”
Nevertheless, it is his subsequent remarks about undocumented immigrants that have led to accusations of dabbling in scientific racism.
“What about permitting people to enter through an open border, 13,000 of whom were murderers. Many of them killed far more than one person, and they’re now happily living in the United States,” Trump stated. “You know, now a murderer, I believe this, it’s in their genes. And we’ve got a lot of bad genes in our country right now. They left, they had 425,000 people come into our country that shouldn’t be here that are criminals. And you know one of the worst stats? 325,000 young children are missing.”
“Let me guess…the immigrants arriving from Europe don’t have the ‘bad genes,’” commented one user on X. “The KKK believed the same about Black people during the era of Jim Crow and beyond,” another added.
According to the National Human Genome Institute, scientific racism constitutes a historical pattern of beliefs that misuse science to promote false claims of superiority for certain racial and ethnic groups.
Prominent scientists in numerous industrialized nations during the 19th and early 20th centuries championed these notions, but by mid‑century such pseudo-scientific racist beliefs had been largely debunked. Nevertheless, evidence indicates that forms of scientific racism continue to appear in various branches of science and inquiry.
These debunked ideas were strongly reinforced during the Jim Crow era when the eugenics movement gained traction, urging white Americans to marry and reproduce within their own race and labeling the genetic traits of minority groups as “unfit” to improve future generations. Former President Theodore Roosevelt was a major advocate of eugenics in the early 20th century.
In response to Trump’s most recent comments about migrants, his campaign spokesperson Karoline Leavitt told NBC News, “He was clearly referring to MURDERERS — not migrants.”
Regarding the 13,000 figure, Trump was pointing to 13,000 immigrants convicted of homicide and not detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Yet, three ICE officials informed NBC that this data does not indicate whether those individuals are incarcerated in state or local facilities. Other officials noted that the data span many years and that many of these people entered the United States before Biden took office, including during Trump’s own presidency.
Trump’s strong immigration rhetoric goes back to his first run for the presidency. He asserted that Mexico is not “sending their best” and claimed that many migrants crossing the border are “rapists” and “criminals.” He vigorously argued for drastic border measures, including constructing a wall along the U.S.-Mexico boundary.
At a 2020 rally in Minnesota, he invoked race science again, addressing a largely white crowd with, “You have good genes. You know that, right? You have good genes. A lot of it is about the genes, isn’t it, don’t you believe? The racehorse theory. You think we’re so different? You have good genes in Minnesota.”
The racehorse theory, once and still widely embraced by white supremacists, promotes the idea of racial purity and the eugenics notion that whiteness represents the pinnacle of genetic worth.
