Trump launches presidential campaign calling Mexican immigrants rapists

On June 16, 2015, Donald Trump descended an escalator at Trump Tower in New York City to announce his presidential campaign. In his announcement speech, Trump said: "When Mexico sends its people, they're not sending their best. They're bringing drugs. They're bringing crime. They're rapists. And some, I assume, are good people." The speech launched a campaign built on anti-immigrant dehumanization that escalated over the next decade into "animals," "not people," "vermin," "garbage," and "poisoning the blood." The claims were false: peer-reviewed research consistently shows immigrants commit crimes at lower rates than native-born Americans. Trump's announcement set the rhetorical template for every subsequent attack on Latino and other immigrant communities that would fuel four years of Trump-inspired hate crimes and violence.