What specific statements did Trump make about Mexican immigrants during his 2015 announcement and what was the immediate reaction?
Executive summary
Donald Trump’s June 16, 2015 presidential announcement included the lines “When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best… They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people,” which became the most-cited excerpt of that speech and was repeated in later statements and press releases [1] [2]. The remarks produced immediate backlash: retailers and media partners cut ties, Republican rivals and Hispanic leaders condemned the language, and Trump doubled down in follow-up statements and speeches [3] [4] [5].
1. What Trump said in 2015 — the words that drove headlines
At his June 16, 2015 announcement Trump said, “When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists,” and concluded the line with “And some, I assume, are good people,” a phrase later quoted and summarized across major outlets [1] [6]. Multiple retrospectives and fact-checks reproduce that passage verbatim when cataloguing his early immigration rhetoric [7] [8].
2. Trump’s immediate public defense and amplification
Rather than retracting the comments, Trump and his campaign issued statements framing the remark as a critique of the Mexican government and of illegal immigration; a campaign press release said he “can never apologize for the truth” and emphasized border-security concerns while noting he employs many Mexicans [9] [2]. He also repeated similar charges in speeches in the following weeks, asserting Mexico was “sending violent offenders” and that the border was a “sieve” [5] [9].
3. Business and media fallout — partners quietly sever ties
The comments prompted tangible fallout: several corporations and media partners severed relationships with Trump in the days after the announcement. Coverage documented companies distancing themselves from his brand and broadcasters responding to advertiser and public pressure [2] [4]. Time and BBC compilations treated the line as a turning point that intensified scrutiny of his campaign’s tone toward Mexico and Latinos [1] [10].
4. Political reaction — GOP division and Latino leaders’ condemnation
Republican rivals were split: some, like Rick Santorum, praised the issue focus while criticizing the language, whereas others, including Jeb Bush, called the comments “extraordinarily ugly” and outside mainstream GOP views [3]. Hispanic and Latino leaders urged Republican candidates to condemn Trump and warned of electoral damage, a dynamic reported by The Guardian and other outlets [4].
5. Fact-checking and contested factual claims
Fact-checkers and analysts scrutinized the factual foundation for Trump’s broad characterization. PolitiFact and FactCheck.org documented that claims implying the Mexican government “forces” criminals into the U.S. lacked evidence and rated some of his assertions as false or exaggerated; long-form analyses cataloged repeated, often misleading claims about immigrants and crime [8] [11] [7]. Reporting also showed he repeatedly invoked high-profile crimes to generalize about immigrant populations [7].
6. How Trump’s framing shaped subsequent debate on immigration
The June 2015 language crystallized a rhetorical strategy that linked immigration, crime and national security in stark moral terms; coverage later traced how those lines dominated subsequent campaign messaging and policy proposals, influencing debates over walls, deportations, and enforcement [5] [12]. Analysts and scholars have since used that quote as emblematic of the administration’s posture toward Latinx immigrants [6].
7. Limits of available reporting and what’s not covered here
Available sources focus on the quoted lines, immediate corporate/political fallout, and subsequent repetition; they do not provide exhaustive transcripts of the entire speech beyond the widely quoted passage nor do they catalog every private or international reaction in full detail — those items are not found in current reporting provided here (not found in current reporting). Where sources disagree, coverage consistently aligns on the core quote and documents both condemnation and supporters’ defense of Trump’s immigration focus [2] [3] [4].
Summary conclusion: multiple contemporary news organizations reproduced and highlighted the exact 2015 words that accused some Mexican immigrants of bringing drugs, crime and being “rapists,” the phrase became a flashpoint that led to corporate and political fallout, and fact-checkers found key factual claims underpinning the rhetoric to be unsupported in reporting cited here [1] [4] [8].