Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos
Guillermo Garcia, a soccer coach, was fundraising for his daughter's soccer team outside of an El Paso, Texas, Walmart on August 3, 2019 when a white supremacist opened fire, killing him and 22 others in what The New York Times called "the deadliest anti-Latino attack in modern American history." El Paso Police Chief Greg Allen told The Dallas Morning News that Patrick Crusius, who was 21 years old at the time, purchased a 7.62 mm caliber gun and drove some 10 hours west from Allen, Texas, to carry out the massacre.
But when Lara Trump—former President Donald Trump's daughter-in-law and former senior adviser to the regrettable ex-president—described potential violence at the southern border, the victims in El Paso apparently couldn't have been further from her mind. She invoked racist sentiments while describing immigrants in an interview Saturday on Fox News' Justice with Judge Jeanine.
"And I don't know what you tell the people that live at the southern border," Lara Trump said. "I guess they better arm up and get guns and be ready, and maybe they're gonna have to take matters into their own hands.
"It should never happen. These people should never make this dangerous journey here."
Her remarks follow a warning from Vice President Kamala Harris to Guatemalans on her first trip abroad since being elected to the White House. "I want to be clear to folks in this region who are thinking about making that dangerous trek to the United States-Mexico border: Do not come," she said last Monday. "Do not come." White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki later clarified Harris' message. "What the vice president was simply conveying is that there's more work to be done, that we don't have these systems in place yet," Psaki told reporters last Tuesday. "It's still a dangerous journey, as we've said many times from here and from many forums before, and we need more time to get the work done to ensure that asylum processing is where it should be."
That's not exactly the message Lara Trump was conveying, and social media users underlined that difference. Russell Foster, who's running for Congress in Texas, tweeted on Tuesday: "This is dangerous. The former president's daughter-in-law is calling for people to shoot immigrants. It's worse after multiple mass shootings over the last few days in Texas & elsewhere. This could lead to an uptick in hate crimes across the country." Author John Pavlovitz called Lara Trump a "violent" extremist "who belongs in prison" in a tweet Monday.
Read more social media responses to Lara Trump's remarks below:
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- Lara Trump: Americans Near Mexico Border 'Arm Up' Against Migrants ›
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