Rather like studying Scripture, context is so important.
In 2015, having glided down that gold escalator in Trump Tower in New York to announce his first presidential bid, Donald Trump was not a minute into the speech when he delivered this broadside against immigrants: “When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re sending people that have lots of problems … They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists.”
All that set the scene for his first-term immigration policies, such as the so-called Muslim Travel Ban which, faced with legal challenges, was rescinded by Trump six weeks later. There was the (very) partial building of the wall along parts of the US–Mexico border. And there was a controversial policy of separating some immigrant children from their parents at the Mexican border as they arrived.
