Donald Trump says migrants who commit murders do so because of 'bad genes'

8 October 2024, 13:31 | Updated: 8 October 2024, 13:38

Former president Donald Trump has suggested migrants commit murders because “it's in their genes.”

The Republican Presidential candidate said there are “a lot of bad genes in our country right now” as he hit out at the Democratic Party’s immigration policy.

Mr Trump made the shocking comments during a radio interview with conservative host Hugh Hewitt.

He was criticising his Democratic opponent for the 2024 presidential race, Vice President Kamala Harris, when he pivoted to immigration, citing statistics that the Department of Homeland Security says include cases from his administration.

"How about allowing people to come through an open border, 13,000 of which were murderers? Many of them murdered far more than one person," Mr Trump said. "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 got a lot of bad genes in our country right now. Then you had 425,000 people come into our country that shouldn't be here that are criminals."

Mr Trump’s comments came after the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) released data about the number of people under its supervision.

That included 13,099 people who were found guilty of homicide and 425,431 people who are convicted criminals.

Trump’s campaign denied that these comments were specifically aimed at migrants moving to the United States.

"He was clearly referring to murderers, not migrants. It's pretty disgusting the media is always so quick to defend murderers, rapists and illegal criminals if it means writing a bad headline about president Trump," Karoline Leavitt, the Trump campaign's national press secretary, said in a statement.

The White House has hit out at Mr Trump in the wake of these comments, with Joe Biden’s press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre saying: "That type of language, it's hateful, it's disgusting, it's inappropriate, it has no place in our country."

Donald Trump has a history of making dehumanising comments about migrants, previously using words such as "animals" and "killers" and saying that they spread diseases.

Last month, during his debate with Ms Harris, Mr Trump falsely claimed Haitian immigrants in Ohio were stealing and eating pets.

Last year, he said immigrants entering the US illegally are “poisoning the blood of our country.”