When it comes to Trump’s record with Hispanics: What’s love got to do with it?

SAN DIEGO >> I feel better. As a Mexican American journalist who has written about the immigration debate from ground zero — i.e., the Southwest — for three decades, and who has watched closely as Donald Trump turned that conversation into a dumpster fire, I was so relieved to have journalists in New York and Washington “white ’splain” to me that Trump doesn’t really hate Hispanic immigrants.

It leaves me more time to enjoy my tacos.

In their book, “Border Wars: Inside Trump’s Assault on Immigration,” New York Times reporters Julie Hirschfeld Davis and Michael D. Shear suggest that President Trump’s crackdown on the U.s.-mexico border — from building barriers to separating families to caging children — is motivated more by ego than by hatred of brown-skinned foreigners.

The book leaves the impression that — while it’s obvious that Trump doesn’t welcome immigrants from Africa or Haiti — his determination to hold the line against Mexicans and Central American border crossers is “amoral rather than motivated by hatred.” Forbes contributor Stuart Anderson concurs, noting that Trump is mostly worried about “the higher numbers at the border making him look bad.”

That’s how white journos on the East Coast do business. They readily accept that Trump is racist toward black immigrants, but not toward brown immigrants.

Trump has made it his personal crusade to wrestle the country away from Hispanics and reverse the cultural slide of white Americans. Of course, the national media doesn’t pay much attention to Hispanics.

How has Trump mistreated Hispanics since he declared he was running for president? I can think of at least 15 times he’s walloped his favorite piñata.

• As a presidential candidate, Trump declared that Mexico is “not sending their best” but instead ridding itself of those who are “bringing drugs ... bringing crime.”

• Trump praised the awful 1953 deportation program Operation Wetback, which removed many U.s.-born Hispanics, and called for a “deportation force” to replicate it.

• Trump took a jab at Jeb Bush’s Mexican-born wife, Columba, by tweeting that “#Jebbush has to like the Mexican illegals because of his wife.”

• Trump questioned whether federal judge Gonzalo Curiel — a native born U.S. citizen — could be fair in a case against him since “he’s a Mexican.”

• Trump promised, during a presidential debate, to deport “bad hombres.”

• Trump has repeatedly called illegal immigration from Mexico an “invasion.”

• Trump fed the stereotype of Hispanics-as-criminals by making the Salvadoran gang, MS-13, a Willie Horton-type boogeyman.

• As president, Trump pardoned Joe Arpaio after the former Maricopa County sheriff was found guilty of racially profiling Hispanics and defying court orders.

• Trump targeted legal immigration by supporting legislation that would have cut it in half with a skills-based system.

• Trump ended Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), leaving 600,000 undocumented young people subject to deportation.

• Trump challenged the 14th Amendment, which makes clear that U.s.-born children of illegal immigrants are U.S. citizens.

• Trump handed control of immigration policy to the villainous Stephen Miller, who apparently never met a Hispanic he liked.

• Trump separated thousands of Central American refugee families and caged scores of children with insufficient food and water.

• Trump is building a “big beautiful wall” despite the fact that militarizing the border has previously resulted in many migrant deaths.

• During a visit to New Mexico, Trump singled out a few Hispanic supporters and crassly bellowed: “We love our Hispanics!”

Sorry, Mr. President. But with polls showing they disapprove of your job performance by a 2-to-1 margin, most Hispanics don’t love you back.