To the editor: The feedback by former President Trump and his operating mate, Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), about Haitian immigrants consuming pets have a protracted and sordid historical past. (“Trump’s Haitian immigrant feedback stir outrage in Florida,” Sept. 13)
It’s true that Haitians have a tendency to not like canines, which had been used as slave-catching instruments in the course of the colonial interval. However they don’t eat them.
Within the U.S., pets are surrogate individuals, thus these common narratives could possibly be seen as variations on rumors that Haitians had been cannibals — allegations that despatched a gaggle of ladies to their loss of life in the course of the 1864 anti-superstition marketing campaign in Haiti. Accusations of cannibalism additionally fueled the “civilizing mission” of African colonialism and slavery, in fact.
Allow us to not neglect that Haitians have lengthy been singled out for uniquely subhuman therapy amongst asylum seekers. They had been the primary group to land in detention facilities once they had been falsely accused of bringing AIDS to the US. In 2019, there have been pictures of Haitians crossing the U.S.-Mexico border being herded by Border Patrol brokers on horseback wielding their reins as whips.
Feedback by Trump and Vance about Haitians consuming pets should not harmless and ought to be referred to as out for what they’re: anti-Black racism.
Lauren Derby, Santa Monica
The author is a professor of Latin American historical past at UCLA.
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To the editor: The rationale why Trump retains going again to immigration time and again is straightforward — to create a divisive, fearful wedge in an election yr.
As an immigration legal professional, I can say that, whereas neither Democrats nor Republicans are framing our issues nicely, Trump’s rhetoric is especially distortive and unrealistic.
His risk of mass deportation of the U.S.’ estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants (and even of a small share) is an impossibility. The domino results to American society, our authorized system and the financial system could be large, with important human struggling alongside the best way.
For greater than 25 years, Democratic and Republican presidents have pushed arduous for complete immigration reform however failed. It’s a legislative unicorn. The one answer is to take a piecemeal method specializing in border safety first.
That is precisely what the Border Act of 2024 would have achieved. Sadly, Trump undermined the invoice’s passage and, with it, an actual first step towards a complete answer.
Brad Brigante, Pasadena
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To the editor: Trump’s repeated, shameless lie about Black immigrants from Haiti consuming pets has been obtained variously by completely different individuals. Some see it as true as a result of their chief stated so, some see it ridiculous, and others have seen it as an try to scare xenophobic voters who’re even “mildly” racist.
After all, Haitian Individuals see this as insulting and scary. However there’s one other group to contemplate: American Jews, who’ve observed Trump’s inclusion of antisemites into his interior circle.
This lie, that the “different” is killing and consuming the one that you love, is a brand new model of the “blood libel” that Jews kill Christian youngsters to eat their blood. This was used to encourage European Christians to kill Jews.
This terrifies me, and it ought to terrify all Individuals.
Richard Merel, Hermosa Seashore
