Donald Trump suggests undocumented migrants who commit murders have 'bad genes'

WASHINGTON – Former President Donald Trump escalated his attack on migrants Monday, falsely suggesting that people who are in the U.S. illegally and commit murder have "bad genes."

Trump on Monday criticized Vice President Kamala Harris' work on the U.S. southern border and immigration proposals in an interview with conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt

"How about allowing people to come through an open border, 13,000 of which were murderers," Trump said.

"Many of them murdered far more than one person, and they’re now happily living in the United States. 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," he added.

The former president appeared to be referring to a letter from Immigration and Customs Enforcement released last month, which showed that 13,099 people have been convicted of homicide who are on ICE's "non-detained docket." That docket includes various types of immigrants who entered the country legally and illegally.

Many people in this category are not in custody of immigration authorities because they are in state or federal prison. In some cases, the crimes they are convicted of happened years or decades ago.

Trump's critics quickly pointed out that migrants commit crimes at lower rates than U.S. citizens, and that Trump has used dehumanizing rhetoric to describe migrants in the U.S. since he entered politics.

"That type of language is hateful," said White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said. "It's disgusting, it's inappropriate. It has no place in our country."

The campaign of Vice President Kamala Harris did not comment on Trump's remarks about "genes."

Trump has attacked migrants – and political opponents – since the day he announced his first presidential campaign in 2015 and has used dehumanizing terms like "vermin" and "the enemy from within."

Trump told a New Hampshire crowd last year that immigrants who enter the U.S. illegally are "poisoning the blood of our country." A 2019 USA TODAY analysis of more than five dozen of the former president's rallies found he had used words like "invasion" and "killer" to discuss immigrants at rallies 500 times.

Contributing: Reuters

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Trump says undocumented migrants who commit murders have 'bad genes'