Trump Jr., the eldest son of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, posted a graphic on Twitter featuring an image of a bowl of Skittles, with a caption equating Syrian refugees to poisoned candy, which sparked outrage among many on social media.
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“I am now a British citizen, but I am Greek-Cypriot by birth and in 1974 I was a refugee because of the Turkish occupation”, the 48-year-old told the BBC.
The Skittles tweet comes less than a week after Donald Trump Jr. drew criticism for saying, on a conservative talk radio show in Philadelphia, that the media would be “warming up the gas chamber right now” if Republicans deployed the same tactics that the Democrats have used. “Skittles are candy. Refugees are people”, a spokesperson said in a statement, according to NPR. As Don Jr. puts it, we have a “Syrian refugee problem”, and that problem is that any one of them is a potential terrorist just itching for the chance to murder Americans.
More problematic than anything else, though, is the fact that the Trump campaign is trying to isolate and demonize a group of people – refugees – who are generally pretty good at integrating themselves into American society and becoming economically self-sufficient.
The Skittles parent company, Wrigley Americas, condemned Trump Jr.’s tweet. “We will respectfully refrain from further commentary as anything we say could be misinterpreted as marketing”.
The sensational tweet repeats an analogy that has been circulating the internet in previous years.
For the past year, Trump has been warning that letting refugees in would make the U.S. vulnerable to new terror attacks.
Most refugees arrive in the country facing massive disadvantages: They have no money, have limited job opportunities and often have linguistic and other cultural barriers to overcome.
According to the Tribune, the senior Trump has advocated ideological vetting for Muslim visitors to the US and has called for a moratorium on immigration from war-torn Syria, a region that has been crippled by the rise of ISIS.
During the campaign Trump has repeatedly called for a moratorium on accepting Syrian refugees.
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A year ago, Clinton said she supported the admission of 65,000 Syrian refugees. This is in addition to about 75,000 refugees from other parts of the world.
