Stay up to date with notifications from The Independent

Notifications can be managed in browser preferences.

Donald Trump labels Mexican criminals ‘bad hombres’ to much derision during final presidential debate

The #BadHombres hashtag started trending internationally within minutes

Feliks Garcia
New York
Thursday 20 October 2016 07:30 BST
Donald Trump labels Mexican criminals ‘bad hombres’ to much derision

Your support helps us to tell the story

From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.

At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.

The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.

Your support makes all the difference.

Donald Trump has called Mexicans a lot of different names since he launched his campaign last summer – “rapists”, criminals, drug traffickers among the most controversial.

But during the third and final debate with Hillary Clinton, Mr Trump came up with a new name for Mexicans he wants to remove from the US: “bad hombres”.

When speaking about what they would do to secure the border, Mr Trump, an immigration hardliner, promised to remove the “bad hombres” from the US shortly after he takes office.

“One of my first acts will be to get all of the drug lords, all of the bad ones – we have some bad, bad people in this country that have to go out,” he said, pausing to sniff. “We’re going to get them out. We’re going to secure the border. And once the border’s secured, at a later date we’ll make a determination as to the rest.

“But we have some bad hombres here and we’re going to get them out."

The name – literally meaning “bad men” – sent a shockwave of guffaws through Twitter, as debate watchers’ dropped their jaws at the phrase.

Within minutes, #BadHombres began trending on Twitter as Latinos derided the Republican nominee.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in