(The hill) – Officials said Hispanic and LGBTQIA students in high schools are receiving offensive messages saying they have been selected for deportation or re-education camps.
“Although we have not received any reports of violence resulting from these offensive messages, we are evaluating all reported incidents and are working with the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division,” the FBI wrote in a statement release. “We also share information with our law enforcement partners and community, academic and faith leaders.”
Law enforcement said communications extended to emails.
The announcement comes days after African-American students received similar messages saying they had been selected to “Picking cotton.”
The FBI is currently investigating the messages and is urging recipients to report the details to the agency.
The messages come after the end of an election season that was in some cases marked by racist rhetoric. President-elect Trump was often criticized for comments from himself or his deputies.
A speaker at his widely watched rally at Madison Square Garden described Puerto Rico as “floating garbage island” while Trump previously compared himself to black voters after receiving a mugshot.
“I was impeached for nothing, for something that is nothing,” Trump said at the Black Conservative Federation (BCF) annual gala in South Carolina in February. “And a lot of people said that’s why black people like me because they did it. “I was so badly hurt and discriminated against, and they actually saw me as discriminated against. It was pretty amazing, but maybe, maybe there is something there.”
NAACP President Derrick Johnson condemned his comments earlier this year and blamed Trump for the racist text messages that circulated after his successful bid for the White House.
“The unfortunate reality of electing a president with a history of embracing and at times encouraging hatred is unfolding before our eyes,” Johnson released in a statement opinion.
“These messages represent an alarming increase in vile and vile rhetoric from racist groups across the country, who now feel emboldened to spread hate and fan the flames of fear that many of us are feeling following Tuesday’s election results.”
He added that the organization would refuse to allow the measures to be “normalized.”
Trump insiders have dismissed claims that the president-elect has promoted racially motivated rhetoric, including his daughter-in-law Lara Trump said previously“You have to look at someone and see what they actually did, and Donald Trump was actually very useful to the black community when he was in the White House.” I have to say, I have never seen this man say anything racist. “
