Trump(isms)

Donald Trump has already won. He is already number one. He has quickly become the most hated man in the United States for many Mexicans and Latinos. Trump has ousted from their shameful positions Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who has been accused by the federal government of arresting immigrants solely on the basis of their physical appearance, and conservative writer Ann Coulter, who recently stated that Mexican immigrants are just as dangerous as Islamic State terrorists.

“When Mexico sends its people [to the United States],” said Trump, as he announced his campaign last week in New York, “they’re not sending the best … They’re sending people that have lots of problems and they’re bringing those problems. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists and some, I assume, are good people.”

Trump’s declaration is wrong, full of ethnic prejudices, and demonstrates an enormous ignorance about Mexican immigrants in the United States. Trump doesn’t know what he’s talking about. His words are just “Trumpisms” without any basis in reality.

According to the Pew Research Center, the majority of the 33.7 million people of Mexican origin who have lived in the United States since 2012 are not drug traffickers, criminals or rapists, as Trump suggested. On the contrary, the 570,000 immigrant-owned, Mexican businesses in the United States generate more than $17 billion per year, according to the Mexican government’s statistics.

The immigrants that Mexico sends to the United States — 11.4 million — and whom, according to Trump, aren’t “the best,” are the people who construct his buildings, harvest the food that feeds him, and contribute to his enormous fortune (calculated at more than $4 billion by Forbes).

It is hypocritical for Trump to criticize Mexicans and simultaneously benefit from them. Over the past months, I visited his hotel in El Doral, Florida, and the Trump International Hotel and tower in New York, and many of the extraordinary employees who assisted me were Mexicans. What do his employees think about their boss? Why does he speak about Mexicans with such hatred?

To Trump, who likes to dole out challenges on his television show, “The Apprentice,” I propose the following: Go one day — only one — without his Mexican and Latino employees. He couldn’t. His businesses would be paralyzed. One day without Mexicans would shut down Trump’s empire.

It’s incredible that a businessman as successful as Trump doesn’t understand the importance of the Latino and Mexican-American market (which makes up 65 percent of the Hispanic population). The Hispanic market generates more than $1.2 trillion per year. Latinos are the fourteenth largest economy in the world (according to the Selig Center for Economic Growth at the University of Georgia). Trump needs a course in history or economy … or a visit to the kitchens, basements, and service elevators of his own hotels.

Trump also proposed the absurd idea of closing the 1,954 miles of the U.S. border with Mexico. “I would build a wall,” he said, “and nobody can build a fence like me.” But it would be a waste of time and money. Almost 40 percent of all undocumented immigrants arrive by airplane; they come with a visa, and then they stay. No wall built by Trump could stop that.

Besides, why does Trump want a wall when the number of undocumented Mexicans detained at the southern border has dropped from 1.6 million in 2000 to 229,000 in 2014? It is the lowest number in four decades, according to Pew.

When he criticizes Mexicans, Trump forgets that many of them have given their lives in U.S. wars. It’s enough to see the lists of fallen soldiers from the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts. They are full of Hispanic last names. Those Mexicans, whom Trump equates with criminals, are called heroes here.

Trump doesn’t understand that this kind of talk is dangerous. Words matter. It is a terrible example for a presidential candidate to filter so much hate toward an ethnic group. People could imitate him, or worse, take violent actions.

It is worrisome, as well, that almost all the presidential candidates from both political parties have remained silent about Trump’s poisonous, defamatory and ignorant comments. It is a painful silence. I suppose it has to do with their campaign calculations.

But if Trump thinks that with his judgmental statements, he is going to get votes, he is wrong. Just the opposite is true. He has already lost the Latino vote, and therefore the White House. He’s fired.