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Melissa Loya
Professor Valdespino
English 1302
11/06/2015
Stop the Trump
“Those who do not remember their past are condemned to repeat it.”
George Santayana
The first time I heard about Donald Trump, I was at home in my pajamas making some
breakfast, and it comes up in the news that one guy was making horrible comments about
Latinos. Truth is, I really didn’t give it that much importance. Sadly someone making bad
comments about Latinos isn’t something new, people are mean and racist to others all the time.
That doesn’t make it okay, but I won’t let every single comment affect me as a Latina. But later
on, it grew into something bigger. I heard and read the name Donald Trump everywhere, in the
newspaper, the internet, the radio, all of the sudden, this guy was the sensation. Still, I didn’t felt
affected in any way, but now I realize that I should’ve paid more attention to his proposals than
the funny videos my friends posted on Facebook about him.
One day, soon after, I was returning home from school, and my mom was in the kitchen
waiting for me. I noticed that she was worried about something. When I asked her what
happened, she told me that this guy Donald Trump was proposing to remove the citizenship of
the children born in the U.S. with foreign parents. Then it hit me, this was my situation. My mom
told me that he wanted to remove these people from the country and later let the “good ones” in.
That’s when I cared. I won’t talk about how mad I was at that moment, or how I felt like an
outsider in my own country. I want to expose the real problem in this situation. We are going
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back in time when we used to judge people for their ethnic roots and culture, following fools and
letting them say what they want. That I cared until it got personal is sad, and this is due to the
fact that everyone is taking him as a joke, when in reality we are talking about the most serious
thing in our county and that is politics, and the future of the law. I know Donald Trump is serious
about wanting to get in the White House, and the worst part is that he’s getting enough support to
be President. Donald Trump’s immigration plan is totally wrong because it’s cruel, he’s sending
an ignorant message to the world, and it’s damaging the Latino community.
The first point I want to make clear is the definition of cruelty, and how this applies to
Donald Trump’s immigration plan. According to Merriam-Webster, the definition of cruelty is
simple: “it is the indifference or pleasure in causing harm (physical or mental) and suffering to
others.” The way Donald Trump shows his indifference to others in his immigration plan is by
not caring about all the families he’ll end up damaging and also the people he’s hurting by the
hateful message he’s spreading. If Donald Trump cared about who he’s harming with his
immigration plan, he wouldn’t even mention it as part of his ideas when he becomes President.
At the same time, I can’t prove that Donald Trump is getting some kind of pleasure by planning
this immigration policy, but he seems pretty confident and sarcastic every time he mentions
something about it. For example, in an interview with CNN, Trump repetitively talks about
“doing the right thing by making them leave” and maybe later allowing the “good ones” re-enter
the country, referring to immigrants (Kopan). Donald Trump actually said there were “a lot of
good ones,” like if he was talking about a bunch of criminals looking to get out of prison. He
treats other people like if they were inferior to him just because of their legal situation, but truth
is that the original residents of this country are Native-Americans, everyone else has an ancestor
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who came as an immigrant to this country. And I don’t see any resemblance with Donald Trump
and a Native-American.
Raul Reyes (an attorney and member of the USA Today board of contributors) showed
that Trump’s immigration plan will require expelling 11 million unauthorized immigrants from
the U.S. This will cost around $400-$600 billion in a period of 20 years (Reyes). Not everyone
is as rich as he is, not all Americans will be willing to pay more taxes for making this happen,
and the idea he’s sending is toxic. Here’s where more than ever I want to point out how
important it is to learn from our past. These kinds of deportations require violence and families
are separated, and the worst part would be that this would create the belief that some people are
better than others. The toxic belief that someone, either because of their race, gender, or
economic status is better, or deserves more, is what bring us to the same issues we constantly
have to deal with. Think about this: American citizens would end up seeing immigrants as
inferiors. Americans would think immigrants are only a hassle that makes them pay more taxes.
Even if you’re not immigrant, just by looking like a Latino or “not American”, would make
others disvalue you as a person.
It is also mentioned in his immigration plan the idea of increasing border security and
immigration enforcement. Again, I can only picture violence and fear. The only message that
increasing the border security would create would be fear on the part of immigrants. We have to
remember that if these families are trying to leave their country it’s because they’re having a
very rough time there and now they’ll have to decide if it’s better to live in bad circumstances in
their native country or to be despised and persecuted in the United States.
Another very important point about this immigration plan and how it is cruel, can be
demonstrated when Donald Trump said he wants to revoke citizenship for the children born in
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the U.S. to undocumented immigrants. This is cruel in many ways because these children already
were United States citizens, and if you revoke their citizenship, what would they be now? I once
learned in my speech class that culture is not something you were born with, it is something you
learn through the years, and these children already grew up on American culture. Revoking their
citizenship would be very confusing for them. They’ll stop having this sense of patriotism to the
United States or they won’t even learn the meaning of patriotism itself. Having a family that’s
already from one specific culture that’s different from the one in the country you’re living in
already creates identity issues. Now imagine taking away the only thing you’ve known for sure
all your life, that is the fact that you are an American Citizen, and you have a place in this
country. This is cruel because it causes mental harm, and I don’t believe Donald Trump is taking
into consideration any of this.
The damage that Donald Trump is causing right now, and the damage he’ll cause to the
Latino community is important to mention because America has to realize what happens when
people with power send a wrong message. There are already consequences caused by Trump’s
followers. For example, a New York Times article published how two young thugs attacked and
urinated on a homeless Latino man in Boston (Downes). The criminals said Trump was their
inspiration. Defending these criminals with the argument that they only used Trump as an excuse
to have someone else to blame on their actions, only proves my point even more. The criminals
thought that if a powerful political figure like Trump is spreading contempt, now they have the
right to do this things, and this is where violence starts. Donald Trump was asked in a news
conference about this attack and he responded by saying that his supporters were “passionate”
(Rappeport). If giving the wrong message wasn’t already bad enough, now Trump is making
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things a lot worst by declining the problem, and making it look like normal support from his
followers.
Donald Trump has also mentioned Mexico, and that how they are sending their worst
people to the United States. In his presidential announcement Trump said: “They’re not sending
the “good ones”, they are sending people with problems like “criminals and rapists” (Schleifer).
First of all, Mexico is not sending anyone, if people are leaving the country it is because of their
own free will. There’s no reason for Mexico to send people to the United States, as a matter of
fact if Mexico is suffering from emigration, it’s because they are not doing well economically
and the government is struggling, which is the complete opposite to the comments Donald
Trump has made about the Mexican government. Second, if immigrants are leaving Mexico, or
any other country, is because they are looking for better opportunities. Immigrants are looking
for a better life and any opportunity to work. Therefore this means immigrants are willing to do
the hard work that many of us don’t want to do and they do it for minimum wage. The only
reason to be afraid of immigrants would be if your dream job is to work in the agricultural field
for many hours at minimum wage.
There’s also a lot of hate growing and it’s very noticeable in the people who support
Trump. But this time I’m not only referring to violence, but hate itself. Hate can create a lot of
damage, and Trump is giving people a reason to hate immigrants by accusing them for being the
United States worst problem. If someone uses dehumanizing words against another person by
calling them criminals or a rapist and blaming their culture, it’s natural that hate is created.
Therefore we have two sides to the story: the people who are hating immigrants because Trump
is accusing them for being the cause of pain in the United States, and the ones being accused,
who are all lumped together regardless of their immigration status.
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There are Latinos that support Trump’s point of view, such as the woman who recently
appeared in the news screaming her support for Trump: “I’m Hispanic and I vote for Mr.
Trump...We love you!” (Schleifer). Even if this seems fake or produced, sometimes a message is
so contagious that you support it, even if the message is wrong. Trump once told a meeting of the
conservative activists last year that the nation’s 11 million undocumented immigrants would
never vote Republican, and that’s one reason to go against immigrants (Reyes). He thinks he has
nothing to lose by turning against them. Hopefully this hate will turn into action (not violence)
and when the voting time comes, all the Latinos who are against his proposal will show their
power and prove they have a voice in this country’s political system. The only good thing that I
see from all the things Donald Trump is causing is that he’s also uniting the Latino community.
Lastly, the ignorance around the whole Trump situation and his message about
immigration is the most alarming point of all. First of all, the idea of creating a 2,000 mile wall
across the Mexican border and make Mexico pay for it is proof of the ignorance Trump has
about Mexico. The idea it implies is to stay away from the United States, which cuts
relationships with other countries. This idea is not what the United States wants. For this idea of
the wall to be possible, Trump said he would impose import tariffs for the construction. Mexico
or any other country wouldn’t accept this, and it would cut ties with one of the United States top
three partners, whose imports in 2014 totaled a $294 billion to the U.S. (Reyes). Trump classifies
the United States as “A-nothing” without a border, but the thing is that the United States already
has a border, and it spends $18 billion on immigration enforcement, therefore there’s no reason
on spending more on it when it’s safer than ever (Reyes).
Trump is quoted as calling the United States “a dumping ground for the rest of the world”
to an adoring crowd (Downes). This statement has crossed several limits. To begin with, he’s
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offending the U.S. and also everyone who crosses the border. This is ignorance at it’s maximum
because of Trump’s lack of knowledge about immigrants, and this topic is the main concern in
his proposals. He should know more about how immigration also benefits a country. If the
United States was a dumping ground for the rest of the world, it wouldn’t be one of the great
powers of the world. The United States knows that it needs other countries to succeed, and that
knowledge has been its greatest strength. The U.S. has people from all over the world, and it also
looks for the best people to join them. That’s why it gives college scholarships to international
students and brings foreign people to work on their companies. Believing we are less as a
country because of immigrants is ignorance because the reality is that we are the best because we
have all these individual cultures working together looking to succeed.
Additionally, Donald Trump's ideas will require undoing the Constitution, and this seems
like something not likely to happen. The problem is that his message has brought up an audience
full of ignorance. How could someone so vile make his way to become such an important public
figure? Sadly we as an audience let this happen, and we’re the ones responsible for getting
people like them out in the public eye. There are many people who think like Trump, or started
thinking like him, and we can see this reflected on his campaign and how he’s gaining support.
The problem with having an ignorant leader is that they spread ignorance and create ignorant
followers. Followers that will end up thinking they’re superior in a way, and like I said before, it
seems like we’re taking steps back in history. The most alarming part of this, could be if Trump
spread this ignorance to an outside audience, to other countries. But this would only be possible
if we let him become president, which doesn’t seem right.
Trump’s immigration plan is a small part of what all this really represents. In history, we
have seen stories like this before, leaders trying to spread toxic messages, people dehumanizing
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others, turning cruel people into public figures, walls, exiles, etc. But in the end it’s all about not
repeating the same errors we’ve made in the past. The United States should be looking into
becoming a better country, and this including immigrants because it’s not right, or it’s foolish to
think they’re the main reason for this country’s problems. Donald Trump’s immigration plan is
totally wrong because it’s cruel, he’s sending an ignorant message to the world, and it’s
damaging the Latino community. We should stop thinking Trump is hilarious and funny, when in
reality it’s the opposite. He’s causing damage to others, and people are letting him because they
think he’s sympathetic. Personally the only way I would like to see him is on a pinata.
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Works Cited
“Cruelty.” Merriam-Webster’s. 11th ed. 2003. Print.
Downes, Lawrence. “The Real Danger of Donald Trump.” nytimes.com. The New York Times,
16 Sept. 2015. Web. 30 Sept. 2015.
Frates, Chris. “Donald Trump’s immigrant wives.” CNNpolitics.com. CNN, 24 Aug. 2015. Web.
28 Sept. 2015.
Kopan, Tal. “Donald Trump: “I have to do the right thing” on immigration.” CNNpolitics.com.
CNN, 19 Aug. 2015. Web. 28 Sept. 2015.
Rappeport, Alan. “A Beating in Boston, Said to be Inspired by Donald Trump’s Immigrant
Comments.” nytimes.com. The New York Times, 16 Sept. 2015. Web. 30 Sept. 2015.
Reyes, Raul A. “Donald Trump’s clueless immigration plan.” CNN.com. CNN, 18 Aug. 2015.
Web. 28 Sept. 2015.
Schleifer, Theodore. “Hispanic Woman at Rally Proclaims Latinos Love Trump.”
CNNpolitics.com. CNN, 9 Oct. 2015. Web. 9 Oct. 2015.
Washington Post Staff. The Washington Post. TWP, 2015. Web. 2 Oct. 2015.