Tweets that Democrats want immigrants to 'infest' the country, invoking MS-13

On June 19, 2018, amid national uproar over family separations at the border, Trump tweeted at 1:52 p.m.: "Democrats are the problem. They don't care about crime and want illegal immigrants, no matter how bad they may be, to pour into and infest our Country, like MS-13. They can't win on their terrible policies, so they view them as potential voters!" The tweet came as Trump defended his administration's zero-tolerance immigration policy amid growing criticism. Immigration advocates and commentators described the word "infest" as dehumanizing language historically applied to vermin or disease rather than people, and noted the tweet conflated all undocumented immigrants with the MS-13 gang. The post came the same week ProPublica released audio of crying separated migrant children.

“Democrats are the problem. They don't care about crime and want illegal immigrants, no matter how bad they may be, to pour into and infest our Country, like MS-13. They can't win on their terrible policies, so they view them as potential voters!” Quote verified against source