Trump’s Dehumanization Campaign Is Becoming Normalized
A president who calls immigrants “garbage” is dangerous enough. A country that grows desensitized to it is even more frightening.
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Fraudsters—some of them Somali—rip off the government, and suddenly all Somali immigrants are “garbage.” Donald Trump, our president, used that word in a cabinet meeting, and Vice President J.D. Vance pounded the table in approval.
“When they come from hell, and they complain and do nothing but bitch, we don’t want them in our country,” Trump said. “Let them go back to where they came from and fix it.”
Then he zeroed in on one of his favorite targets, Congresswoman Ilhan Omar (D-MN), who happens to wear a hijab—something Trump derisively called “swaddling.” “She’s garbage,” he said. “Her friends are garbage. These aren’t people who work. These aren’t people who say, ‘Let’s make this place great.’” Later, in the Oval Office, he even claimed Somali immigrants had “destroyed our country.”
As disturbing as this diatribe is, it’s also expected from Trump. What’s more alarming is the muted response. A few Minnesota leaders spoke up for the Somali community—men and women who, no matter what Trump says, work as hard as anyone. But beyond that? Almost nothing. I worry this silence means we’re becoming numb—accepting dehumanization, cruelty, and depravity as normal.
This isn’t just rhetoric—it’s policy. In recent days, Trump has barred all would-be immigrants and travelers from 19 poor countries across Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, and the Middle East, with plans to expand that list to more than 30. At the same time, he has opened the doors wide for white South Africans, whom he falsely claims face “genocide.”
Trump has long railed against immigrants from impoverished nations. His latest attack appears to have been sparked by the arrest of an Afghan national in the shooting of two National Guard members in Washington, D.C., one of whom died. The shooter, Rahmanullah Lakanwal, was himself shot by authorities after he attacked the soldiers on a sidewalk in the capital.
Lakanwal had served in a CIA-trained “Zero Unit” during the war against the Taliban. After the U.S. withdrawal and the Taliban’s return to power, those units were targeted for retaliation. Like many who aided America, Lakanwal was granted asylum. According to reports, he had been deeply affected by his wartime experience and suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder.
Every decent person understands that one violent individual does not represent an entire community. One unstable Afghan should not invalidate all Afghans seeking refuge. A handful of Somali crooks should not justify locking out immigrants and asylum seekers from dozens of countries. But Trump is not a decent person, and he’s clearly playing to the fears—and, let’s be honest, the prejudices—some Americans hold toward foreigners, especially those who are brown, Black, or Muslim.
By labeling Somalis as “garbage” bent on destroying America, Trump both dehumanized them and cast them as enemies. He has done this before. In his campaigns and throughout his presidency, he has smeared millions of Latin American immigrants as criminals and leeches draining public resources.
Since taking office, Trump has directed Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to round up tens of thousands of people suspected of being undocumented. Those swept up have overwhelmingly been people who speak Spanish, appear foreign, or work in industries like agriculture and landscaping. Though the administration promised to target violent criminals, only 5 percent of those arrested had been convicted of violent crimes. Meanwhile, thousands of children have been separated from their families, with more than 600 placed in government shelters—the highest number since the government began tracking the data in 2015.
As ICE destroys families at home, Trump has cut billions in food and medical aid from impoverished countries abroad. By shuttering the United States Agency for International Development—an institution that had helped vulnerable people since the 1960s—he abandoned millions of the sick and hungry. Researchers at Boston University estimate the loss of this aid has contributed to the deaths of 600,000 people, two-thirds of them children.
And now, under Trump, the U.S. military is directly killing suspected drug smugglers aboard boats targeted by U.S. missiles, many fired from Reaper drones. The administration justifies this by claiming drug traffickers are waging “war” on America, with narcotics serving as “weapons of war.” This twisted logic makes a mockery of the men and women who have actually served in real war against real enemies.
In late November, the press revealed that killing is such a priority in this campaign that U.S. forces fired on two survivors who were floating in the water after their boat had been destroyed. The rules of war—rules the United States helped create—flatly forbid this. Senators who viewed the video of the so-called “double tap” attack were horrified. But not Tom Cotton, who said, “We killed them, and we were right to kill them. It was needful.”
We were not right to kill them. And we have no legal or moral basis to wage this shadow war in the first place. But under Trump, this is “acceptable.” So is dehumanizing Somalis, turning away asylum seekers, cutting off aid to starving families, tearing immigrant children from their parents, and normalizing extrajudicial killings.
Trump is an indecent man. His words and actions violate our values as Americans and as human beings. The depravity is accumulating—week after week—and if we accept it, if we shrug, if we say “that’s just Trump,” we bind ourselves to it. We make it ours.
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