Joseph R. Fischer

Northumberland

On March 26, the 25-story Frances Scott Key Bridge collapsed into the frigid river below. Eight Central American immigrants working on the road crew patching asphalt went down with the mangled steel. Two survived; six perished. They were fathers, sons and brothers working thankless jobs most native-born Americans would not take. What they were not were “rapists, drug dealers and murderers,” as candidate Donald Trump said of immigrants on July 8, 2015.

Resurrecting his anti-immigrant rhetoric for another run for the White House, on Dec. 17, 2023, Trump proclaimed, without proof, “This is an invasion. This is like a military invasion… Drugs, criminals, gang members and terrorists are pouring into our country at record levels. We’ve never seen anything like it. They’re taking over our cities.”

No, they’re not.

Trump cares little about facts when a lie better serves his purposes (30,573 verified lies across his presidency, according to the Washington Post).

The fact is, immigrants are overwhelmingly less likely to commit crimes than native-born. Certainly, it’s the nonexistent immigrant indeed to be facing 88 felony indictments as Trump is — and none could afford the army of lawyers dedicated to making sure Trump never has his day in court.

The adage that people in glass houses should not throw stones applies. There is an invasion happening, but it has nothing to do with the tragic loss of the men on the bridge. It has everything to do with how close we are to returning a criminal to the White House.