When Donald Trump first announced his presidential intention in June, most people I treated it like a joke. A famously unfiltered real-estate tycoon running for president? People exchanged chuckles and quips about moving to Canada. After all, nothing came from the three previous times he considered candidacy.

Three months later, Trump leads Republican polls, but his campaign still feels like a surreal prank. He appears everywhere, from jokes about his hair on the Facebook group “Punstoppables” to a sexy Trump Halloween costume retailing for $69.95 to his face plastered on prospective t-shirt designs for the classes of 2016 and 2017. Trump transcends mere manhood to become a meme, a fiery rallying point for some, an easy-to-hate villain for others and a laughable diversion for cynical millennials.

Trump never fails to liven the political landscape with a dash of controversy. He reveals another candidate’s private phone number on live television. He implies a female pundit is on her period. And recently, he unveils his immigration plan, which includes deporting hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants, repealing birthright citizenship and demanding that Mexico build a wall along the U.S. border.

It is unlikely that Trump actually subscribes to his vocalized ultra-conservative beliefs; when he considered running in 2000, he stated that “I really believe the Republicans are just too crazy right,” and advocated for health care reform and gun law restrictions (albeit limited ones).

But as shaky as Trump’s resolve to his campaign platform is, his words immensely impact the groups he vilifies to incite popular fervor.

His xenophobic demagoguery resonates with a real and vocal portion of America. In August, the Boston police charged two men with assaulting a homeless Hispanic man. “Donald Trump was right, all these illegals need to be deported,” one of the men said to police afterwards.

Trump responded to the incident by saying that the people following him “love this country and want this country to be great again” before tweeting over a day later amidst backlash that he “would never condone violence.”

And yet we still treat Trump’s campaign like a joke.

Beneath our country’s saccharine all-American “melting pot” rhetoric lurks a silent but pervasive racism and fear of foreigners, one brought into stark definition by Trump’s success.

In Harker and the wider bay area, immigration is inextricably imbedded in our culture. The citizenship of our families, teachers, classmates and selves is contingent on an America that welcomes newcomers. By failing to take Trump seriously, we fail to acknowledge the threat to the open policies to which we owe our community.

Plans to build a “Great Wall of Trump” seem almost comical, but the reality remains that Trump polls as the leading GOP candidate. His uncensored comments and bombastic policies are not nearly as disturbing as the growing proportion of Americans who violently support them, perhaps more fervently than Trump himself.

Like it or not, Donald Trump is a serious candidate in the 2016 Presidential race. It is time to stop joking around.

This piece was originally published in the pages of the Winged Post on Oct. 16, 2015.