A Texas high school valedictorian had to delete her Twitter account after receiving a barrage of hate tweets from Trump supporters for posting a list of her accomplishments that included the declaration she’s an undocumented immigrant.
In a tweet that’s since been removed, Mayte Lara Ibarra, a high school student in Austin, wrote, “Valedictorian, 4.5GPA, full tuition paid for at UT, 13 cords/medals, nice legs, oh and I’m undocumented” with an emoji alluding to the Mexican flag.
Ibarra received some messages of support — but she also received many tweets telling her to go back to Mexico. One person even submitted a tip to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency through a Homeland Security Investigations website dedicated to reporting suspected criminal activity, according to Buzzfeed.
https://twitter.com/cuervo_jones/status/739584105780678656
Many of the Twitter users who sent mean tweets to Ibarra identified themselves as supporters of the presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump. Some included the hashtags #TrumpTrain, #OnlyTrump, and #Trump2016 in their tweets harassing the student. Ibarra eventually took down her Twitter account and changed her name on Facebook.
Trump has made numerous anti-immigrant, anti-Latino comments since the beginning of his presidential campaign. At the launch of his bid for president, he suggested that Mexican immigrants are drug dealers and rapists. More recently, he has insinuated that a federal judge is not capable of fairly adjudicating a case against now-defunct Trump University because of his “Mexican heritage.”
This type of rhetoric has inspired Trump’s supporters to threaten and harass Latinos across the country. According to a recent Southern Poverty Law Center survey that solicited thousands of comments from teachers, there’s been an uptick in bullying against immigrant and Muslim students, and Trump’s name alone can be enough to “derail a class” with many kids fearing they will be “kicked out of the country.”
Ibarra may not actually be an undocumented immigrant. The Texas-based KVUE News reported that the tweet that sparked all the backlash was a “misunderstanding.”
“I do hope that she is not lying about her status because being undocumented is not easy, it’s not something that you can play with,” Edlisa Lopez with University Leadership Initiative at the University of Texas at Austin, a program for undocumented immigrants, told KVUE. Ibarra has indicated she plans to attend the school, which for the past two decades has given out tuition waivers to valedictorians regardless of immigration status.
Regardless of Ibarra’s own status, however, many other undocumented high schoolers have won prestigious academic awards.
At another high school in Texas, Larissa Martinez came out as undocumented during her valedictorian speech this month. Though she didn’t mention Trump directly in her speech, Martinez appeared to allude to his rhetoric, saying, “America can be great again without the construction of a wall built on hatred and prejudice.” She received a standing ovation afterwards. Other undocumented valedictorians in recent years include twins Brizzia Munoz Robles and Maria Munoz Robles and Enkhjin Tuvshinzaya.
Update:
After confusion over her legal status, Lara confirmed in an interview with the Austin Statesman that she is, in fact, undocumented. She said her tweet was meant to “show others that you can accomplish anything, regardless of the obstacles you have in front of you.”
“After seeing all the harassment going around, I thought it was best to just deactivate my twitter, in attempts to ignore the harmful comments,” she told the publication. “I don’t know if I’ll ever go back to twitter, I’ve realized that social media is filled with so many mean people, who always have something to say. But I just want everyone to understand that my tweet wasn’t made to mock anyone.”