http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/282335-dem-to-trump-take-your-border-wall-and-shove-it-up-yourJune 06, 2016, 12:16 pm
Dem to Trump: 'Take your border wall and shove it up your ass'
By Cristina Marcos
A Hispanic House Democrat representing a Texas district bordering Mexico tore into Donald Trump's attacks on a Mexican American judge as blatantly racist.
Rep. Filemon Vela (D-Texas) didn't mince words in a lengthy open letter to the presumptive GOP nominee on Monday.
"Mr. Trump, you’re a racist and you can take your border wall and shove it up your ass," Vela wrote.
Vela began the letter noting that he agrees with Trump that Mexico should do more to deter violence from drug cartels and that felons in the U.S. illegally should be deported. But he then moved to excoriate the real estate mogul over his rhetoric about Hispanics, including Trump's assertion that an American-born federal judge of Mexican descent wouldn't be impartial in a lawsuit against Trump University.
"[Y]our ignorant anti-immigrant opinions, your border wall rhetoric, and your recent bigoted attack on an American jurist are just plain despicable," Vela wrote.
"Your position with respect to the millions of undocumented Mexican workers who now live in this country is hateful, dehumanizing, and frankly shameful."
The second-term lawmaker acknowledged his own Mexican roots, but noted his family immigrated to the U.S. before Trump's grandfather did from Germany.
"Before you dismiss me as just another 'Mexican,' let me point out that my great-great grandfather came to this country in 1857, well before your own grandfather. His grandchildren (my grandfather and his brothers) all served our country in World War I and World War II. His great-grandson, my father, served in the U.S. Army and, coincidentally, was one of the first 'Mexican' federal judges ever appointed to the federal bench," Vela wrote.
Trump doubled down on Sunday on his stance that Gonzalo Curiel, the judge overseeing the Trump University case, would be biased due to the billionaire's campaign pledge to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. The GOP nominee further said it was "absolutely" possible he'd be treated unfairly by a Muslim judge given his proposal to ban Muslims from the U.S.
Many top GOP leaders have distanced themselves from Trump's racially charged comments about Curiel, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.).
