The White House press gremlins have freaked out again because someone was mean to their boss.
The latest petulant response from the media goon squad came after a U.N. watchdog issued an unprecedented rebuke of a sitting American president, accusing Donald Trump personally of using racist hate speech that has “sparked grave human rights violations.”
The U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, an 18-member body of independent experts, released a report criticizing what it called “intensified immigration crackdowns” across the United States. It accused political leaders—including the president—of deploying language that dehumanizes migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers.
“No one cares what the biased United Nations’ so-called ‘experts’ think,” came the White House response.
The U.N., which Trump has effectively tried to replace with his dollar-store “Board of Peace” version, complete with knock-off logo, had actually released a very sober take on the socio-political climate in the U.S., fueled by Trump’s overt discrimination.
“Racist hate speech by political leaders, including the President, combined with intensified immigration crackdowns in the United States, notably near schools, hospitals and faith-based institutions, has sparked grave human rights violations,” the committee said. “The Committee was deeply disturbed by the growing use of derogatory and dehumanizing language, and the dissemination of negative and harmful stereotypes targeting migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers. Portraying them as criminals or as a burden, by politicians and influential public figures at the highest level, particularly the President ... may incite racial discrimination and hate crimes.”
The report also denounced Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection for what it described as the “systematic use of racial profiling and arbitrary identity checks” against people of Latino, African, and Asian origin.
The White House did not take it well. “The UN’s extreme bias continues to prove why no one takes them seriously,” spokesperson Olivia Wales said in an emailed statement to Axios. “President Trump is delivering on his promise to make our country safe again: the murder rate has plummeted to a 125-year low, with last year marking the biggest one-year drop in recorded history, crime categories are dropping across the board, and we have the most secure border in history. No one cares what the biased United Nations’ so-called ‘experts’ think, because Americans are living in a safer, stronger country than ever before.”
The numbers tell a more complicated story. At least 675,000 people have been deported since Trump retook office through January, per Department of Homeland Security estimates. The U.N. report estimates at least eight people have died during ICE operations or while in ICE custody since January, “including protesters exercising their right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association and detained refugees, asylum seekers and migrants.”
Polls taken since federal immigration agents shot two U.S. citizens in Minnesota earlier this year show majorities now disapprove of ICE raids and how the agency is handling its job.
