(CNN) The way Donald Trump talks and tweets about immigrants, you'd almost think he forgot that his mother and two of his own grandparents emigrated to the United States from abroad, and that their struggles -- and troubles -- weren't so different from those experienced by the people he blithely condemns today.

With his latest bigoted tweets, Trump suggested certain members of Congress "go back" to where they came from and that Speaker Nancy Pelosi would offer them "free travel arrangements!" Though he didn't name them, it was obvious he was referring to Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota and Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts. Omar, a war refugee from Somalia, is the only foreign-born member of this group.

Besides demonstrating a dangerous level of racism and demagoguery, Trump's statements reminded the world that he is never much concerned with being accurate when it comes to origin stories. Trump has mistakenly claimed that his own father was born in Germany, when he was a product of the Bronx. He also repeatedly claimed Swedish blood although his mother came from Scotland and his grandfather, originally Friedrich Drumpf, was German-born.

Friedrich's immigrant tale is hardly the story of a man who would have been welcomed by an America that was overly concerned with matters of character and patriotism. Having come to New York as an unaccompanied minor, he made his fortune selling liquor and the services of prostitutes to gold miners in the West. When he returned to his native Bavaria for a visit, he made it clear that America was his second choice as he begged to be permitted to stay. Authorities noted that he had never fulfilled his obligation for military service, and rejected the request.

The Swedish thing didn't come up until World War II made the President's father Fred a little embarrassed by his heritage. As then-businessman Donald Trump explained to me in an interview in 2013, his father's customers would have been more comfortable leasing apartments from a Swedish-American, and so the myth was created. His son perpetuated it , talking repeatedly about his Swedish heritage well into the 1980s.

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