Donna Deegan regrets ‘pain’ caused by ‘concentration camp’ comments, doesn’t regret calling out Donald Trump

Cleanup continues from across the Atlantic Ocean in the wake of Jacksonville Mayor Donna Deegan’s comments that former President Donald Trump’s immigration policy would lead to “concentration camps.”

But while Deegan acknowledges the impact of her words on some listeners, the Kamala Harris supporter isn’t backing down from the central premise about the former and potentially future leader of the free world and what he might do to undocumented immigrants if he becomes President for a second time.

The first-term Democratic chief executive of the state’s largest city started off her provided quote with amelioration. “Anyone who knows me, has listened to me speak, or watched my actions, knows I would never diminish the unique awfulness and horror that was the Holocaust. That was not my intention. I regret that my choice of words may have caused anyone pain.”

Then she moved on to again contextualize her remarks, saying she has “no regret about calling out the inhumanity of treating immigrants, or any person, as less than human.”

“The inevitable human rights violations that would result from rounding up people for mass deportation is unthinkable and un-American. I work hard every day to build unity in our city and I want the same for our country,” Deegan said, adding that her remarks afford an “opportunity to learn from each other and continue to build a city where everyone is valued, seen and heard.”

The Mayor, in London on the taxpayer dime on what is being presented as a trade mission in conjunction with the Jacksonville Jaguars’ barnstorming, riled local Republicans when she waded into the immigration debate an interview with Times Radio earlier this week. Deegan said Trump would put “people in what would really amount to a concentration camp-type situation to round them out of the country.”

“What would we call them? If you’re rounding people up and putting them in camps?” Deegan responded. “What would we call those? It’s a concentration of people that are in a camp. I’m not suggesting anything beyond that, but I just think it seems rather inhumane to me.”

She went on to double down on the Trump denunciation, saying “human rights abuses” would be “inevitable.”

“When you flat out call a group of human beings animals and say they are poisoning the blood of our country, then promise to round them up in detention camps, what would lead anyone to believe that they would be treated humanely?”

Deegan’s political enemies have made hay of this, including numerous local and state elected officials, the Republican Party of Florida, and a spokesperson for the former President who called on the “no-name Mayor” to resign.

The Jaguars’ final London game of the season is Sunday, where the team will either get its second win or sixth loss of the season.

But even when they lose, they win: NFL owners approved the stadium financing deal that will see close to a billion dollars poured into renovations of the Jaguars’ domestic home, in what is being billed as necessary to keep the franchise in town and as a revitalization of the area around the stadium and downtown.