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The mainstream media reaction to President Trump calling the brutal Latino gang MS-13 “animals” was perhaps the perfect example of how The Donald managed to pull off the upset a year and a half ago.

Outlets like The New York Times reported the president called undocumented immigrants in general “animals,” despite it being rather clear he was referencing the violent gang.

Though some eventually corrected the record (sort of) others, like Vox.com and MSNBC’s Chris Hayes are still trying to play “gotcha.”

Trump lashed out at undocumented immigrants during a White House meeting, calling those trying to breach the country’s borders “animals” https://t.co/aQNeu29T6e pic.twitter.com/ogrFKaWyDZ

— The New York Times (@nytimes) May 16, 2018

But perhaps the most … inventive take on the issue comes from University of Texas at Austin law professor Steve Vladeck. In a tweet from late Wednesday afternoon, he wrote

Dear @realDonaldTrump: Fortunately for all of us (including this fourth-generation descendant of Russian immigrants), #SCOTUS disagrees with you about whether immigrants (documented or not) are “people”—for both “ordinary” and “constitutional” purposes.

He then links to the 1982 US Supreme Court case Plyler v. Doe and highlights the following passage (emphasis in the original):

The Fourteenth Amendment provides that

[n]o State shall . . . deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

(Emphasis added.) Appellants argue at the outset that undocumented aliens, because of their immigration status, are not “persons within the jurisdiction” of the State of Texas, and that they therefore have no right to the equal protection of Texas law. We reject this argument. Whatever his status under the immigration laws, an alien is surely a “person” in any ordinary sense of that term. Aliens, even aliens whose presence in this country is unlawful, have long been recognized as “persons” guaranteed due process of law by the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments.

Oh, very good, professor.

Fellow law professor Glenn Reynolds (Instapundit.com) responded to Vladeck by asking “How do you feel about calling NRA members ‘terrorists?'”

The reply is remarkable:

I hold the (apparently controversial) view that all humans are, in fact, humans. History is replete with examples of horrible abuses that had at their roots efforts to dehumanize particular groups. So yes, I think it’s worse to call people “inhumane animals” than “terrorists.”

— Steve Vladeck (@steve_vladeck) May 17, 2018

Wow. Referring to a barbarous, merciless cadre of killers as “animals” is more reprehensible than calling a legal organization dedicated to preserving a basic right of all Americans “terrorists.”

MORE: Law prof: Trump pardon of Joe Arpaio ‘impeachable offense’

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IMAGE: Sergey Furtaev/Shutterstock

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