Trump Attacks Syrian Refugees in Addressing Orlando Shooting
BY: Tamara Wong Azaiez/Contributing Writer
Following the recent shootings in Orlando, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump addressed America’s foreign policy regulations today. In his speech, he chose to target the recent flow of Syrian refugees as a prevalent reason behind the attack; although, the gunman was an American citizen with Afghani descent with no distinct ties or relations to the refugees.
Trump began his speech by addressing the devastation and distress caused by the shooting. The presumptive nominee chose to connect the attacks to the relaxed nature of the American immigration system by saying, “the only reason the killer is in America is because we allowed him to enter.” Omar Mateen, the shooter, was an American born citizen holding a US passport. Trump shamelessly spoke falsely about the situation either for political gain from anti-immigration Americans, or because he refused to actually learn about the incident.
Through this statement alone, Trump has chosen to shine a negative light on the entire Muslim population because of one deranged, homophobic man with a history of violence and hatred. While warning Americans, Trump said, “thousands of people have mindsets” similar to the killer, “we do not know who is coming into our country, we have to stop the admittance of refugees across our border because who knows what will happen?”
The Orlando shooting and the current refugee crisis have absolutely no correlation. By linking the two, Trump is using Islamophobia, prejudice, and plain ignorance to disparage refugees from the Arab world.
At one point, Trump chose to challenge Hillary Clinton’s recent statement of how Muslims are peaceful people. He somehow connected gun control policies to refugees, insisting that, “If we ban guns, terrorism will prevail.” Trump said that due to the recent shootings, people should have more access to guns to protect themselves from the massive influx of refugees, who, apparently are bringing guns with them into the country, which is simply incorrect and outlawed.
By stopping the flow of Muslim or Arab immigrants into the U.S., Trump’s problematic beliefs that all Muslims “enslave women, murder gays and in general should not be allowed in our country” is given value by his supporters.
It seems as if Trump is attempting to piece things together using little to no research. Based on a logical observation, one can see that gun control has nothing to do with the refugees; nor will allowing increased access to guns solve the greater issue of eliminating massacres caused by deranged local individuals.