You turn to us for voices you won't hear anywhere else.

Sign up for Democracy Now!'s Daily Digest to get our latest headlines and stories delivered to your inbox every day.

GOP Hopeful Donald Trump on Mexican Immigrants: “They’re Rapists”

HeadlineJun 17, 2015

The real estate mogul and reality television personality Donald Trump has announced his bid for the Republican presidential nomination. In a rambling kickoff speech, Trump branded Mexican immigrants as criminals and rapists.

Donald Trump: “When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re not sending you. They’re not sending you. They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.”

In 1990, Donald Trump was sued for hiring at least 200 undocumented Polish workers to demolish a building to make way for Trump Tower, the massive skyscraper where he delivered his speech. In his comments, Trump also vowed to build a wall to stop Mexican immigration, as well as ISIL.

Donald Trump: “I would build a great wall. And nobody builds walls better than me, believe me. And I’ll build them very inexpensively. I will build a great, great wall on our southern border, and I will have Mexico pay for that wall, mark my words. Nobody would be tougher on ISIS than Donald Trump, nobody.”

If current polling numbers hold, Trump will likely make the cut for the first Republican presidential debate in August. Debate sponsor Fox News says it will take the top 10 candidates from the national polls. For his kickoff theme song, Trump chose Neil Young’s “Rockin’ in the Free World,” a song written as a partial critique of Republican policies in the 1980s. In a statement, Young said Trump is not authorized to use the song and said he supports Bernie Sanders for president.

The original content of this program is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Please attribute legal copies of this work to democracynow.org. Some of the work(s) that this program incorporates, however, may be separately licensed. For further information or additional permissions, contact us.

Non-commercial news needs your support

We rely on contributions from our viewers and listeners to do our work.
Please do your part today.
Make a donation
Top