trump immigration el paso gun reform

Gage Skidmore/Flickr (CC-BY-SA)

Trump’s proposed gun reform comes with an immigration string attached

His terms are being criticized on Twitter.

 

David Covucci

Tech

Posted on Aug 5, 2019   Updated on May 20, 2021, 7:18 am CDT

In the wake of back-to-back mass shootings in the U.S. over the weekend, calls for America to address gun violence came not only from the left but those on the right, too.

This morning, President Donald Trump tweeted he was also in favor of reforming gun laws. But the way he did it left a great number of people appalled.

Trump asked for “strong background checks” married to “immigration reform.”

It’s not just that gun reform and immigration are two of America’s most intractable debates, making the idea of passing some joint grand compromise seemingly impossible, it’s that the mass shooter in El Paso, Texas, had an explicitly anti-immigration agenda.

Trump’s preference for white immigrants over migrants of color, drastically reducing the number the U.S. accepts, and desire for a border wall has shown immigration reform looks like from this president. And it is those same attitudes that were on display in a manifesto posted by the El Paso shooter. He rampaged through a Walmart to kill immigrants.

As many on social media noted: The president is effectively saying, give him what he wants, and we’ll work to get gun control reform.

It’s a sentiment a number of people found abhorrent.

https://twitter.com/intelwire/status/1158351080675262465

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*First Published: Aug 5, 2019, 9:39 am CDT