Many on social media have been pointing to a federal guidance from the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) that identifies the phrase “Go back to where you came from” as language that could violate anti-discrimination laws in the wake of recent attacks by President Trump targeting four lawmakers of color.
On its website, the federal agency, which enforces the government’s employment discrimination laws, states that “ethnic slurs and other verbal or physical conduct because of nationality are illegal if they are severe or pervasive and create an intimidating, hostile or offensive working environment, interfere with work performance, or negatively affect job opportunities.”
{mosads}”Examples of potentially unlawful conduct include insults, taunting, or ethnic epithets, such as making fun of a person’s foreign accent or comments like, ‘Go back to where you came from,’ whether made by supervisors or by co-workers,” it adds.
The phrase is similar to one Trump has drawn harsh criticism for making in a tweet over the weekend, in which he told four minority congresswomen – Democratic Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.), Rashida Tlaib (Mich.), Ayanna Pressley (Mass.) and Ilhan Omar (Minn.) — to “go back” to their home countries.
Ocasio-Cortez, Tlaib and Pressley were born in the U.S. Omar is a naturalized citizen.
In the wake of his comments, a number of Twitter users, including George Conway, the husband of White House counselor Kellyanne Conway, have been surfacing the federal guidance.
Earlier this week, the House voted to approve a resolution condemning Trump’s tweets targeting the minority congresswomen as racist. Four Republicans broke party ranks to join all Democrats in passing the measure.