“It’s in their genes. And we’ve got a lot of bad genes in this country right now,” Trump said.
Former President Donald Trump told conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt Monday morning that there are “a lot of bad genes” among migrants living in America.
During his presidential campaign, Trump, the Republican nominee, has repeatedly asserted that President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee, have allowed “millions of people from jails and from prisons” into the country.
In his appearance on Hewitt’s syndicated radio show, Trump repeated a recent campaign line that there are “13,000” convicted murderers that have entered this country illegally.
“When you look at the things [Harris] proposes, they’re so far off”, Trump told Hewitt. “She has no clue. How about allowing people to come through an open border? Thirteen thousand of which were murderers. Many of them murdered more than one person, and they’re now happily living in America right now.”
He continued, “Now, a murderer, I believe this; it’s in their genes. And we’ve got a lot of bad genes in this country right now.”
Newsweek reached out to the Trump and Harris campaigns via email for comment.
Trump has frequently used the term “migrant crime” even though violent crime rates are decreasing in the United States. Studies indicate that immigrants commit crimes at lower rates than U.S. citizens.
Figures detailed in a September 25 letter from Immigration and Customs Enforcement Deputy Director Patrick Lechleitner to Texas Representative Tony Gonzales show there are 13,099 immigrants convicted of homicide who are on the agency’s non-detained docket, meaning they are not in immigration detention.
