They are human beings...

Not "animals poisoning our blood."

Jun 17, 2025

The funeral of Maria Isabel Vasquez Jimenez, May 28, 2008

In May 2008, Maria Isabel Vasquez Jimenez had been working in the sweltering heat for several days, picking grapes at a San Joaquin County vineyard and hauling them in large crates, when she collapsed. There was no water source for her to drink from and no shelter in the fields from the 100-degree heat.

On May 14, Maria died of heatstroke. She was just 17 years old… and pregnant.

Maria was much more than an “undocumented Mexican immigrant.” She was a young woman. An expectant mother. A daughter who left crushing poverty in Mexico to work in brutal conditions for meager pay in hopes of creating a better life.

But to Donald Trump, undocumented immigrants like Maria aren’t even human. Here are just a few ways he has demonized them: “These aren’t people. These are animals. Stone-cold killers. The worst people. The enemy from within.”

The president claims that immigrants are “poisoning the blood” of the American people, a term used by Adolf Hitler in Mein Kampf to condemn the mixing of races and stoke hatred of Jews.

But, of course, there is no “poisoning,” except for the venomous language of hate that poisons the minds of those being politically manipulated.

Demonization Feeds the Base

The demonization of “the other” is an age-old tactic of tyrants and authoritarians to gin up hatred and fear in the masses, which renders them easier to manipulate and exploit.

It provides false justification for cruelty and violence while offering a perverted sense of comfort for those in need of scapegoats to blame for their own inadequacies, shortcomings, and failures.

Far from being rampant criminals, numerous studies conclude that both undocumented and legal immigrants in the U.S. consistently have much lower crime and incarceration rates than American citizens.

The vast majority of undocumented immigrants are the hardworking people behind the scenes of our lives who vacuum our houses, mow our lawns, care for our children, and tend to our elderly. They do the dishes in our restaurants, dig ditches at construction sites, clean the waste in slaughterhouses, toil on assembly lines, and work tirelessly to harvest our food.

They are people like Efrén, who spends his days on his knees picking radishes under the blistering sun in southern California—a man who has worked in America’s fields for the past 49 years.

They pay taxes, yet gain no benefits.

According to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, undocumented immigrants paid $96.7 billion in federal, state, and local taxes in 2022. Most of that amount, $59.4 billion, was paid to the federal government, while the remaining $37.3 billion went to state and local governments.

More than $30 billion of those tax dollars went toward funding programs these workers are barred from accessing, including $25.7 billion in Social Security taxes, $6.4 billion in Medicare taxes, and $1.8 billion in unemployment insurance taxes.

They don’t vote.

Despite hysterical claims to the contrary, voting by undocumented immigrants is rare and nothing more than a scare tactic based on the racist “Great Replacement Theory” that claims nonwhite immigrants are being brought into the United States to replace white voters.

The largest protest against a sitting US President in our nation’s history took place last weekend.

An estimated 5-8 million people turned out across America last Saturday for No Kings Day, rallying and marching in support of our constitutional democracy, speaking out against authoritarianism, and condemning President Trump’s attacks on immigrants, academia, the free press, and the rule of law.

Saturday was also President Trump’s 79th birthday and the 250th anniversary of the U.S. Army. Attendance at his military parade in Washington, DC, fell dismally short of expectations.

The President appeared to nod off several times as the tanks and troops passed by. The parade was estimated to cost $40 million.

As I write, heavily armed and masked ICE agents continue to arrest immigrants around the nation, including a pregnant young woman who was released after they realized she was an American-born citizen. National Guard troops and Marines remain in Los Angeles while the legal battle over their deployment sits in federal court.

Last Thursday, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) instructed ICE agents to hold off on rounding up agricultural and hotel industry workers after Trump publicly expressed sympathy for farmers and hospitality industry executives, many of whom donated to his presidential campaign and were worried about potential financial losses due to worker shortages as a result of his policies.

Yesterday, that policy was reversed, and ICE agents were ordered to continue conducting immigration raids at agricultural businesses, hotels, and restaurants.