These days, racism remains a popular and fashionable thing in many Trumpian circles. Just recently, as an example of this disturbing trend, the president’s chief of staff John Kelly claimed to NPR that the undocumented immigrants who come to this country have no skills and are not prepared to assimilate into American society.
That dehumanization of people who don’t live here stands as a convenient, albeit imaginary, basis for the Trump administration’s continued insistence that we need a wall in between us and Mexico.
Although there are certainly many who do not agree with Kelly’s characterization of the situation, there is one person who does — popular far right commentator Tomi Lahren, who has made a name for herself as a “voice” of people who have absolutely no idea what they’re talking about.
This week, Lahren told Fox’s Jesse Watters during an appearance on Fox News:
‘You don’t just come into this country with low skills, low education, not understanding the language and come into our country because someone says it makes them feel nice. That’s not what this country is based on.’
.@TomiLahren: “You don’t just come into this country with low skills, low education, not understanding the language and come into our country because someone says it makes them feel nice. That’s not what this country is based on.” @WattersWorld pic.twitter.com/Dux0cABHar
— Fox News (@FoxNews) May 13, 2018
There’s one major problem with Lahren’s line of reasoning — her own background contains immigrants who, like untold millions of others, came to this country with little to no knowledge of the language or the culture. Despite those circumstances, not an excessive amount of time down the line from those immigrant ancestors, Lahren has been able to make a huge name for herself and rake in millions of dollars basically just for talking.
The circumstances of Lahren’s background were laid out on Twitter by journalist Jennifer Mendelsohn.
As she explained in a tweet that included a screenshot of some of Lahren’s most recent incendiary comments on Fox News:
‘[T]he 1930 census says Tomi’s 3x great-grandmother had been here for 41 years and still spoke German. Her 2nd great-grandmother had been here for 10 yrs. Spoke no English.’
She added that Lahren’s great-grandfather Henry was baptized in 1884 — and it was recorded not in English, but in Norwegian.
Check it out below.
Except the 1930 census says Tomi’s 3x great-grandmother had been here for 41 years and still spoke German.
Her 2nd great-grandmother had been here for 10 yrs. Spoke no English.
Her great-grandfather’s 1895 baptism from MN? Recorded in Norwegian.#resistancegenealogy #receipts pic.twitter.com/rIySFu6fvL
— Jennifer Mendelsohn (@CleverTitleTK) May 13, 2018
Correction: Henry Lahren was born and baptized in 1884.
— Jennifer Mendelsohn (@CleverTitleTK) May 13, 2018
Commenting on her findings, Mendelsohn said:
‘This is not about playing gotcha. But as long as people like Lahren continue to push a specious agenda that suggests today’s immigrants are somehow wholly different from previous ones, I’ll keep showing just how alike they really are.’
Mendelsohn actually already shared similar findings about Trump chief of staff John Kelly’s own background, posting information on Twitter showing how his great-grandfather John DeMarco was, apparently, in the United States for up to 47 years without actually becoming an official citizen of this country. For at least the first eighteen years of his time in the United States, he could neither read, write, nor speak English.
Here’s John Kelly’s maternal grandmother Teresa as a child in the 1900 census.
Her father, a day laborer named John DeMarco had been here for 18 years.
He had not become a citizen.
He could not read, write, or speak English.#resistancegenealogy pic.twitter.com/pmnHD4Yobq— Jennifer Mendelsohn (@CleverTitleTK) May 11, 2018
The 1930 census shows those great-grandparents living with their daughter, son-in-law and grandchildren, one of whom was Kelly’s mother.
John DeMarco had been here for 47 years and was not an American citizen (“AL”). Crescenza had been here for 37 years and spoke no English. pic.twitter.com/5Nyfsu48y0
— Jennifer Mendelsohn (@CleverTitleTK) May 11, 2018
Despite all of these facts, highlighting the reality of immigrants — even those without documentation — posing no kind of inherent, criminal threat to the United States, the president and his allies continue to push for developments like a border wall in between us and Mexico anyway.
The president has even suggested that he’s open to shutting down the government if Congress doesn’t include provisions for “border security” in an upcoming spending bill.
Twitter responses to Mendelsohn’s posts about Lahren’s background are below.
Featured Image via Screenshot from the Video
