Civil rights groups say Trump's comments are 'reminiscent' of Hitler

The League of United Latin American Citizens and the Anti-Defamation League accused former President Donald Trump of pandering to “the lowest and most sinister human emotions” after he told supporters migrants are “poisoning the blood of our country” at a campaign rally over the weekend.

"Donald Trump's remarks in recent days accusing immigrants of ‘poisoning the blood of America' are reminiscent of the language of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi regime," Domingo Garcia, national president of LULAC said in a statement Tuesday afternoon. "Trump's words very intentionally create hatred of the other and are nothing more than fear-mongering. They play to the lowest and most sinister human emotions to incite hatred and cause harm or worse to innocent men, women, and children.”

It’s not the first time Trump’s comments have drawn the comparison. President Joe Biden’s campaign seized on the caustic rhetoric shortly after Trump wrapped his Saturday rally in Durham, New Hampshire.

“Tonight Donald Trump channeled his role models as he parroted Adolf Hitler, praised Kim Jong Un, and quoted Vladimir Putin while running for president on a promise to rule as a dictator and threaten American democracy,” Biden-Harris 2024 spokesperson Ammar Moussa said Saturday evening. Saturday’s statement was the fourth time in the past six weeks Biden's campaign has linked Trump’s comments to Hitler’s in written statements.

Civil rights groups have long warned that such statements can lead to violence.

“We have seen this kind of toxic rhetoric inspire real-world acts of violence in places like Pittsburgh and El Paso," said ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt in a statement Tuesday. "It should have no place in our politics, period. America is stronger as a pluralistic society that welcomes immigrants.”

Trump, the current frontrunner in the GOP primary, recently came under fire for describing his political foes as “vermin,” a characterization used by fascist dictators like Hitler and Benito Mussolini.

On Tuesday, LULAC National Immigration Committee Chair Lydia Guzman cautioned that Trump’s attacks “will serve to mobilize the Latino vote,” a cohort of voters both campaigns are courting ahead of the 2024 election.

Trump's 2024 campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung retorted that the groups "should stop their own fear mongering, especially when a new record was just set the other day on how many illegals crossed the border."