Recently, there has been a burst of anti-Semitic attacks targeting Jews in the New York City and surrounding New Jersey areas, and now, a Trump administration official has been caught seemingly deleting a tweet that pinned blame for one of the latest incidents on the attacker’s family’s immigrant background. Despite the literal thousands upon thousands of incidents of violence perpetrated by Americans whose entire personally relevant families were born and raised in the United States, Acting Director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) Ken Cuccinelli apparently decided that in this one, isolated case, a happenstance connection between violence and immigrants could be used to cast a shadow over the entire group.
Cuccinelli’s tweet read:
‘The attacker is the US Citizen son of an illegal alien who got amnesty under the 1986 amnesty law for illegal immigrants. Apparently, American values did not take hold among this entire family, at least this one violent, and apparently bigoted, son.’
A tweet by acting DHS deputy secretary Ken Cuccinelli (@HomelandKen) that suggested the suspect in the New York Hanukkah stabbings is a US citizen who had not assimilated appears to have been deleted or removed pic.twitter.com/xo7Nc2iw8x
— Ted Hesson (@tedhesson) December 30, 2019
So now, a leading purveyor of the Trump administration’s immigration policy would apparently like to blame an immigrant family for an attack carried out by one of its members, with no apparent basis to go on whatsoever other than his personal assumptions about “American values” — whatever that’s supposed to mean. Besides the obvious terrible argument of trying to describe an entire group based off the disconnected actions of one individual, thanks to the green lights granted by loose gun laws, American values seem to actually include violence over and over again!
For their part, the attacker’s family issued a statement via defense attorney Michael Sussman that the now charged perpetrator had been “raised in a home which embraced and respected all religions and races.” That attacker, Thomas Grafton, was hit with a federal hate crime charge on Monday following previous charges of attempted murder. He wounded five attendees of a Hanukkah celebration at a New York City-area rabbi’s home, and during the incident, Grafton apparently also tried to get into an adjacent synagogue, but he was fought off and fled. Following the incident, federal investigators have discovered anti-Semitic journal content and internet searches for synagogue locations.
Cuccinelli’s jump into completely irrelevant, racist opining about immigrants stings even more considering President Donald Trump’s own long delay in even addressing the incident at all. He posted a statement about the incident that reeked of political speechwriting done by someone else the day after the attack took place, after many other public figures already commented and after he angrily tweeted about plenty of other topics.
He posted:
‘We must all come together to fight, confront, and eradicate the evil scourge of anti-Semitism. Melania and I wish the victims a quick and full recovery.’
The anti-Semitic attack in Monsey, New York, on the 7th night of Hanukkah last night is horrific. We must all come together to fight, confront, and eradicate the evil scourge of anti-Semitism. Melania and I wish the victims a quick and full recovery.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 29, 2019
And that came right after he also posted:
‘Crazy Nancy Pelosi should spend more time in her decaying city and less time on the Impeachment Hoax!’
He’d no doubt like us to take his sudden veer into acting presidential seriously, but considering the overwhelming majority of his belligerent behavior, that’s not about to happen anytime soon.
Crazy Nancy Pelosi should spend more time in her decaying city and less time on the Impeachment Hoax! https://t.co/enoZZFxxmg
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 29, 2019
