WASHINGTON (AP) — More than 150 years after the abolition of slavery and more than 50 years after the passage of the Civil Rights Act, President Donald Trump's incendiary comments about immigrants have ripped open a jarring debate in the United States and around the world: Is the American president racist?

To Democrats and some historians, there is little dispute given the president's own words and actions. His political rise was powered first by his promotion of lies about Barack Obama's citizenship, then by his allegations that Mexican immigrants to the United States were rapists and murdere...