Over the past few months, we’ve seen the “Trump Effect” have devastating effects on the Latino and immigrant communities.
In Boston, an immigrant was beaten by men with a metal pipe. When they were finally arrested, one of them allegedly told police, “Donald Trump was right, all these illegals need to be deported.”
Earlier this week, an Indiana teenager was shot in the back as he was leaving the grocery store with his mother. “The suspected shooters drove past Brian and yelled an anti-Hispanic slur,” reported a local news station.
Then yesterday, a group of DREAMers were spat upon and told to “Go home!” by Donald Trump supporters at a rally in Washington, D.C. Just a few weeks ago, journalist Jorge Ramos faced similar venomous rhetoric, when a Trump supporter told him to “Get out of my country!”
This hateful “Get out!” rhetoric continues to pop up as Trump gets louder, now directed at a Sikh man in Chicago who was left beaten and bloodied in what is being classified as a hate crime by police:
“Terrorist!” “Bin Laden!” “Go back to your country!” came the shouts from the other car.
Inderjit Singh Mukker, a father of two on his way to the grocery store in his Chicago suburb, pulled over when the vehicle in front kept tailgating him, according to the Sikh Coalition. The 53-year-old Sikh man, who wears a beard and turban, expected that the person in the other car would just drive past.
Instead, the Coalition says, the other driver got out and stormed toward him, reaching into Mukker’s car and repeatedly punching him in the face. Mukker lost consciousness and had to be taken to the hospital, where he received treatment for a fractured cheekbone, bruising and blood loss and six stitches for the lacerations on his face.
Police in Darien, Ill., 30 miles southwest of downtown Chicago, said that the incident Tuesday night is being investigated as a hate crime, according to NBC. The alleged assailant is in police custody.
As Frank Sharry noted earlier, “we are getting a glimpse of what a Trumpian era would look like. Intolerance is on the rise and hateful rhetoric is encouraging it.”
