How to avoid looking like Nazis: Trump allies were told to stop saying they’ll put migrants in ‘camps’
Donald Trump’s incoming administration brass wants it made clear: The president-elect is not planning to build a brand new network of “camps” to house the myriad undocumented immigrants who Trump has vowed to round up in what he claims will be “the largest deportation” operation in the “history of our country.”
To be sure, Trump’s migrant expulsion program, if he were to follow through with his plans to deport millions, would require massive new camps — something that Trump’s top policy-hand has explicitly told reporters. But openly describing these camps as “camps” invites supremely negative historical comparisons.
Some top Trump advisers get so annoyed when the media refers to his publicly detailed immigration-crackdown plans as including “camps” that they’ve cautioned the president-elect’s allies and surrogates to stop using the word “camps” during the current presidential transition, according to two sources familiar with the situation.
“I have received some guidance to avoid terms, like ‘camps,’ that can be twisted and used against the president, yes,” says one close Trump ally. “Apparently some people think it makes us look like Nazis.”
It wasn’t the news media that came up with the term “camps” to describe the plans for Trump’s new, expanded system of detention facilities for holding immigrants awaiting mass deportations — a network of detention centers that he could potentially call on the U.S. military to help build and operate. It was Team Trump that started describing the future that way. [Continue reading…]