Justice

President Trump's Grandfather Once Faced Deportation And His Response Has Been Uncovered

March 3rd 2017

In 1905, a man begged not to be deported, not only for him, but for the sake of his family.

That very man is President Donald Trump's own grandfather, Friedrich Trump, and now his letter to Luitpold, Prince Regent of Bavaria, begging not to be deported has been translated into English from German by Harper's magazine.

Friedrich TrumpWikimedia Commons - wikimedia.org

It was German tabloid Bild that first revealed the existence of the letter in November 2016 with the following headline, translated in English: "With this letter Germany pushed Trumps Opa [Grandfather] off." The Washington Post later picked up the story, and, now for the first time, Harper's has translated the decades-old handwritten letter.

Friedrich Trump, "begged local authorities in southern Germany to revoke an expulsion order for avoiding military service as a teenager," according to The Washington Post. (Obvious spoiler alert: it didn't work.)

The letter of Trump's grandfather has a lot of relevance today.

"My parents were honest, plain, pious vineyard workers," he wrote in the beginning of his letter. "They strictly held me to everything good — to diligence and piety, to regular attendance in school and church, to absolute obedience toward the high authority." He then goes on to explain how God "blessed him," and he "became rich." He became an American citizen in 1892, but he and his wife left New York because, as he writes, "she could not tolerate the climate" so they went back to Kallstadt, where he was born.

But then, one day, he wrote that they "were confronted all at once, as if by a lightning strike from fair skies, with the news [...] we must leave our residence [...]."

Elder Trump makes his case for staying in his country, asking "Why should we be deported? This is very, very hard for a family." 

However, as part of his campaign, Trump promised to deport millions of undocumented immigrants, "immediately." 

Trump's executive order on immigration has ignited a flurry of immigrants residing in the U.S. to worry about possibly facing deportation, with some long-time U.S. residents already getting caught up in immigration raids.

One such example occurred Tuesday, when an undocumented Mexican father was arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) after dropping his daughter off at school in Los Angeles, California. Romulo Avelica-Gonzalez had been living in America for over 20 years until ICE detained him. His daughter says, of her dad, "he always wanted the best for his family. He would do anything for his family."

[H/T Vice]

Share your opinion

Do you agree with Donald Trump's deportation plans?

Yes 6%No 94%