Trump Even Sees Syrian Refugees Invited Into Germany by Angela Merkel as ‘Illegals’

Angela Merkel ‘Made One Very Catastrophic Mistake and That Was Taking All of These Illegals’ Trump Says

Donald Trump revealed how he feels about immigrants in general, and Syrian refugees in particular, by referring to the Syrian refugees invited into Germany by Chancellor Angela Merkel as “illegals.”

The President-elect, in a wide ranging interview published in The Times of London that is being panned around the world today, Trump said Merkel “made one very catastrophic mistake and that was taking all of these illegals, you know taking all of the people from wherever they come from. And nobody even knows where they come from. You’ll find out, you got a big dose of it a week ago. So I think she made a catastrophic mistake, very bad mistake. Now, with that being said, I respect her, I like her, but I don’t know her.”

The concept of an “illegal immigrant” is offensive because people aren’t “illegal,” but even in this situation Trump’s remarks are offensive because the people he refers to, Syrian refugees, were invited in to Germany by Chancellor Merkel, so they’re not “illegal immigrants,” they’re immigrants – they have followed the immigration policies of Germany.

Asked why Brexit happened, Trump said, “People don’t want to have other people coming in and destroying their country and you know in this country we’re gonna go very strong borders from the day I get in.”

The President-elect went on, adding, “We don’t want people coming in from Syria who we don’t know who they are. You know there’s no way of vetting these people,” Trump said, which is wholly false. “I don’t want to do what Germany did.”

“And I’ve great respect for Merkel, by the way, I have to say. I have great respect for her. But, I, I think it was, I think it was very unfortunate what happened,” he continued. “And you know I have a love for Germany because my father came from Germany and, I don’t want to be in that position. You know the way I look at it, we have enough problems.”

Trump also discussed his campaign comments, his promise to ban all Muslims from entering the U.S.

“There will be extreme vetting, it’s not gonna be like it is now, they don’t even, we don’t even have real vetting,” Trump said, again, falsely. “The vetting into this country is essentially non-existent as it is, as it was at least, with your country.”

Germany took in over one million refugees from Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, North Africa and the Balkans between Sept. 2015 and Sept. 2016, Der Spiegel reported.

Some responses via Twitter:

 

Image by Adam Brown/Crown Copyright/UK Department for International Development via Flickr and a CC license