Members of Mollie Tibbetts’s own family have come forward to decry the xenophobia that has erupted after an undocumented immigrant from Mexico, Christian Bahena Rivera, was charged with her murder.
Like a farmer dancing in the rain after a two-month drought, a beaming Donald Trump at a campaign rally in West Virginia on Tuesday crowed about the tragic murder of Iowa college student Mollie Tibbetts. She was allegedly murdered by undocumented immigrant, Christian Rivera.
“You heard about today with the illegal alien coming in, very sadly, from Mexico and you saw what happened to that incredible, beautiful young woman . . . the laws are so bad,” the President said. “The immigration laws are such a disgrace, we’re getting them changed, but we have to get more Republicans. We have to get ‘em!”
The White House echoed his words on Twitter:
Donald Trump has consistently spewed a characterization of immigrants as violent “animals” that are “bringing crime.” He has even claiming that because 63,000 people (not true) have been murdered by undocumented immigrants since 9/11, this “infestation” of undocumented immigrants is actually more of a serious public safety threat than terrorism.
There’s a big problem with this narrative: Not since Kate Steinle was killed by an undocumented immigrant in 2015 has the President had a victim to turn into a poster child of hate. It’s been three long years and her story was getting stale, especially when a jury found that her “savage murder” was actually just a homeless drug addict who accidentally discharged a handgun as he pulled it out of a bag he had recently stolen.
Now there is a new poster child for Trump and others to use to whip up anti-immigrant sentiment. Kate Steinle has been replaced by Mollie Tibbetts. (And this is despite the fact that Rivera's attorney Allan Richards said Rivera, who had worked at a dairy farm owned by a prominent Iowa Republican, has been living in Iowa legally.)
University of Wisconsin professor Michael Light told The Washington Post that Trump’s comments on undocumented immigrants are akin to saying women are more violent than men and then attempting to back this up with examples of women committing violent crime. The numerous studies finding immigrants being less violent, Light noted, “are not contradicted by stating the number of offenses committed by immigrants,” as the President did.
In fact, Light found that in areas where undocumented immigrants are present, people are less likely to be the victim of violent crimes and that, as the proportion of undocumented immigrants decreases, people are more likely to be the victims of violent crimes.
Trump’s Hispanic immigrants-are-violent Big Lie has caused a sudden uptick in hate crimes against Latinos. California, home of the nation’s largest Hispanic population, has seen a 50 percent increase in hate crimes since Trump began spewing his anti-immigrant hate in 2016.
Just up the road from where Tibbetts was killed lived Iowa’s former longtime governor, Robert Ray, perhaps the last of the progressive-minded Republicans.
Just up the road from where Mollie Tibbetts was killed, Iowa’s former longtime governor, Robert Ray, died last month from complications of Parkinson’s disease.
Perhaps the last of the progressive-minded Republicans, Ray was best known for making Iowa the largest home of thousands of Southeast Asian refugees fleeing Vietnam and Laos after the end of the Vietnam war.
Much like now, with Hispanic immigrants, there was anti-immigration sentiment, and most states closed their door, but not Ray and not Iowa.
Ray famously told his fellow Iowans in regards to the refugees, “Don’t tell me of your concerns for these people when you have a chance to save their lives. Show me. Don’t tell me how Christian you are. Show me.”
In a similar appeal to our better angels, Mollie Tibbett's aunt pushed back on the anti-Latino rhetoric sweeping the nation by reminding everyone that, "Evil comes in every color."
That was leadership. The exact opposite of what we have today.