The Japanese American Citizens League issued a statement Aug. 27 responding to recent remarks Republican presidential candidates Donald Trump and Jeb Bush have made regarding Asians.

Bush responded on Aug. 24 to critiques of his previous use of the term “anchor babies” when referring to children of undocumented immigrants who are born in the United States.

“This is ludicrous for the Clinton campaign and others to suggest that somehow, somehow I’m using a derogatory term. What I was talking about was the specific case of fraud being committed, where there’s organized efforts — and frankly, it’s more related to Asian people — coming into our country, having children in that organized effort, taking advantage of a noble concept, which is birthright citizenship,” he said.

At a Aug. 25 campaign rally in Dubuque, Iowa, Trump mocked Chinese and Japanese negotiation tactics, saying, “They say, ‘We want deal.’”

The civil rights organization said in the statement that, “These comments on immigration have devolved into claims about so-called ‘anchor babies,’ a negative term that creates an image of people crossing borders to give birth so they will be shielded from deportation.

“JACL is deeply troubled by the coarsening of public discourse where it is affecting public perceptions about ethnic communities, including Japanese Americans and Asian Americans.”