Mahud Villalaz, the Latino U.S. citizen who was left with second-degree burns after a white man threw acid in his face in what is a clear hate crime, said his attacker told him during the attack, “You came here to invade.” The rhetoric sounds familiar to many who share his background because it is.
It’s the same language used by the president of the United States about immigrants and Latinos, with a recent USA Today analysis finding that Donald Trump has spewed “invasion” rhetoric at his rallies at least 19 times since 2017, along with “predator,” “killer,” “criminal,” and “animal” dozens more times. Get “the hell out of our country,” the analysis continued, has left his lips nearly four dozen times.
While it doesn’t appear that, at least for now, Villalaz’s attacker outright named Trump, the line connecting their rhetoric is clear, and anyone with brown skin and a Latino name has felt it, is living it, and is in constant fear of it when stepping into public and crowded areas. Trump has mainstreamed anti-Latino and anti-immigrant hatred, into arenas and U.S. policy—and we’re seeing the violent results.
It was just this past summer that a white supremacist terrorist who similarly complained of a “Hispanic invasion” drove hours to intentionally target the border community of El Paso, Texas, murdering 22 people, who were just going about their lives, in cold blood. The white supremacist terrorist, NBC News reports, said he wanted to kill Mexicans.
In Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Villaluz, who is originally from Peru and has called the U.S. his home for two decades now, heard more of Trump’s words near verbatim from his attacker, saying that the attacker told him to “go back to your country.” The New York Times reports, “A nearby surveillance camera captured video of the attack, showing a man splashing a liquid onto the left side of Mr. Villalaz’s face.”
“What we are seeing is not just an attack on immigrants,” said Darryl Morin of Milwaukee advocacy group Forward Latino. “It’s an attack on all Hispanics." Writer and activist Julissa Arce has similarly noted the violence incited by the Trump administration, writing that the El Paso terrorist never stopped to ask anyone's legal status before pulling his trigger. “That’s because it isn’t actually about legality,” she said in something that must always be repeated. “It is about our brown skin in America.”
It was just this week that baseball player Ryan Zimmerman, celebrating a World Series championship at the White House, told Trump that "We'd also like to thank you for keeping everyone here safe in our country.” But that comes with terms and conditions, because Trump has made it clear that those with brown skin should expect no safety, because in his eyes they have no place in America.