The killer in the Orlando shooting, Omar Saddiqui Mateen, who was born in New York and raised in Florida, was, according to Donald Trump’s major speech on Monday following the attack, actually “born an Afghan.”
Donald Trump: American-born Orlando shooter “born an Afghan”
Jeff Swensen/Getty Images
In a speech about terrorism, in the wake of the tragic mass shooting — which left nearly 50 dead and dozens injured in the hospital — Trump overlooked Mateen’s American citizenship in an attempt to justify his proposals to tighten the borders against Muslims and immigrants from the Middle East.
“The killer was born an Afghan, of Afghan parents who immigrated to the United States,” Trump said of Mateen’s ethnic background.
To validate the alleged danger of allowing Afghan immigrants in the country, Trump cited a Pew study from 2013 stating that 99 percent of people from Afghanistan supported Sharia law.
“They share these oppressive views and values,” Trump said of Afghans. “We want to remain a free and open society. If we do, we have to control our borders. And we have to control them now, not later.”
The Pew study states the following on this statistic:
Indeed, the survey finds that support for making sharia the law of the land is often higher in countries where the constitution or basic laws already favor Islam over other religions. Majorities in such countries say sharia should be enshrined as official law, including at least nine-in-ten Muslims in Afghanistan (99%) and Iraq (91%).
