Trump: 'Why are we having all these people from s***hole countries come here?'
President Donald Trump reportedly asked why the US is accepting immigrants from "s***hole countries."
The comments came during an immigration meeting with a bipartisan group of lawmakers.
President Donald Trump reportedly questioned in a White House meeting on Thursday why the United States should accept immigrants from "s***hole countries," referring to Haiti, El Salvador, and African countries.
"Why are we having all these people from shithole countries come here?" Trump said, according to The Washington Post, which cited two sources briefed on the meeting. Other reportsquicklyconfirmed that he described the countries with the expletive.
He then reportedly suggested that the US instead accept immigrants from nations like Norway, whose prime minister he met with on Wednesday.
The comments came amid negotiations with a bipartisan group of senators seeking to resolve the fate of young unauthorized immigrants whose protections under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program are being phased out by the Trump administration.
The senators had suggested that the diversity visa lottery program, which hands out roughly 50,000 visas annually, be partially reallocated to immigrants already living in the US whose protections under a humanitarian program are being terminated by the Trump administration.
The White House announced earlier this week it would end the Temporary Protected Status for 200,000 Salvadorans who were allowed to live and work in the US legally after two severe earthquakes hit their home country in 2001.
The Trump administration has also ended TPS for 45,000 Haitians and 2,500 Nicaraguans. The program also covers immigrants from Honduras, Somalia, Sudan, South Sudan, Syria, and Yemen.
In a statement from deputy press secretary Raj Shah, the White House did not deny that Trump made the comments.
"Like other nations that have merit-based immigration, President Trump is fighting for permanent solutions that make our country stronger by welcoming those who can contribute to our society, grow our economy and assimilate into our great nation," Shah said.
"He will always reject temporary, weak and dangerous stopgap measures that threaten the lives of hardworking Americans, and undercut immigrants who seek a better life in the United States through a legal pathway."
Trump has previously been rumored to have assailed immigrants from Haiti and African countries. A New York Times report last year said Trump grew enraged at a June meeting over the amount of visas awarded to travelers from certain countries, grumbling that 15,000 Haitians who entered the United States in the preceding months "all have AIDS" and that the 40,000 Nigerian visitors would never "go back to their huts" in Africa.
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