Washington: Donald Trump Jr., the son of Republican nominee Donald Trump, tweeted out a graphic on Monday night that compared Syrian refugees to Skittles.

‘If I had a bowl of Skittles (fruit-flavoured candy) and I told you just three would kill you. Would you take a handful?’ the graphic asked. ‘That’s our Syrian refugee problem.’

Trump Jr. added, in text above the graphic, ‘This image says it all’, CBS News reported.

Donald Trump, has strongly opposed allowing Syrian refugees into the US, first proposing a ban on Muslims entering America and then changing that ban to be for people from ‘areas of the world where there is a proven history of terrorism against the US, Europe, or our allies.’

Nick Merrill, a press secretary for Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, though, quickly fired back with a three-word tweet: ‘This is disgusting’, the Guardian reported.

The tweet sparked outrage on social media, with some users posting harrowing images of Syrians caught up in the civil war juxtaposed with the word Skittles.

Jon Favreau, Barack Obama’s former speech writer, posted an image of a bloody Syrian child with the caption: Hey @DonaldJTrumpJr, this is one of the millions of children you compared to a poisoned Skittle today.’

Singer John Legend said, ‘By that logic, you would take everyone’s guns away. Because someone is gonna kill somebody at some point. But I guess that doesn’t count.’

As well as the content of the tweet, some people took notice of Trump Jr’s grammar.

‘Beyond the blinding stupidity and accidental great argument for firing all cops, this was punctuated by an illiterate,’ a Twitter user posted.