immediately In the aftermath of the New Year’s truck attack that killed 14 people and injured dozens more in New Orleans, President-elect Donald Trump baselessly implied that the Biden administration’s immigration policies were to blame.
“When I said the criminals coming in were much worse than the criminals in our country, that statement was constantly refuted by Democrats and the fake news media, but it turned out to be true,” President Trump wrote on TruthSocial shortly afterwards. 10:45 a.m. on New Year’s Day. (He added later in the post: “Our hearts are with all the innocent victims and their loved ones, including the brave officers of the New Orleans Police Department.”)
The attacker, Shamsud-Din Jabbar, who was killed in a shootout with police, declared allegiance to ISIS, but according to the FBI, he was actually a U.S. citizen who grew up in 2009. He is from Texas and served in the U.S. Army. Trump has yet to clearly set the record straight. In a post the next day, he criticized authorities for failing to protect “Americans from the violent SCUM outside and inside that has infiltrated every aspect of our government and our nation itself,” claiming: “Biden’s ‘Open Borders Policy’ I have said several times, at rallies and elsewhere, that Islamic extremist terrorism and other forms of violent crime have become so severe in the United States that it is difficult to imagine or even believe. The time has come. It will be worse than we ever imagined.” “It’s just that.”
When I asked whether Trump would more directly correct the original misstatements, the president-elect’s communications director, Stephen Cheng, said, “I’m too stupid to actually understand what he posted.” Cheong hinted that Trump was referring to the broader problem of violent criminals crossing the border and “radical Islamic terrorism.”
Top Republicans have also spread Trump’s claims, trying to link Biden’s border policy to the attack. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) said on Fox News on Thursday that Republicans have been “sounding the alarm” about “terrorism and wide open borders and the idea that dangerous people are coming here in droves and committing terrorism.” . “There is a possibility that there are terrorist cells all over the country,” he said. Reps. Eli Crane (R-Ariz.) and Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) also posted on X, linking news of the attacks to border and immigration policy. “We are simply saying that our open borders and legal immigration system create additional vulnerabilities for Americans and there is nothing to fix,” Crane said in his post Sunday. Representatives for Greene and Johnson did not immediately respond to requests for comment. mother jones.
Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr., echoed his father’s lies in X’s New Year’s Day post, writing, “Biden’s parting gift to America is immigrant terrorists.”
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos: this week Sunday: “The perpetrator of the terrorist attack in New Orleans was born in the United States, raised in the United States, and served in our military. “It’s not a border issue.”
“The perpetrator of the terrorist attack in New Orleans was born in the United States, raised in the United States, and served in our military. “This is not a border issue.” Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said. https://t.co/rRMUv9vl3M pic.twitter.com/CdxBxDH9S1
— This Week (@ThisWeekABC) January 5, 2025
However, it appears that the Republican Party will not back down. Instead, they continue to demonstrate a willingness to sacrifice immigrants at the altar of Trump.
