In a damning New York Times report released Saturday, Dec. 23, President Donald Trump allegedly went on a racist and xenophobic rant that attacked Nigerian and Haitian immigrants during an immigration briefing in the Oval Office.
The report claims that Trump blasted members of his national security team because of a spike in immigration during the first few months of his presidency.
Trump allegedly said the high numbers made him look foolish to his supporters. He attacked his team while reading a list given to him by domestic policy adviser, Stephen Miller that stated 15,000 people immigrated from Haiti.
They “all have AIDS,” he said.
Additionally, he complained that 40,000 people had come from Nigeria and that they would never “go back to their huts” in Africa, a pair of officials told The Times. But there have been sources who attended the meeting mentioned in the report stating that they did not hear Trump state this.
His statements were read as a confirmation of his racism and bigotry.
Since we’re talking about Haiti today, we should also talk about how the country’s economic condition can’t be disentangled from the fact in 1804, after the Haitian Revolution, western nations refused to trade with the country specifically because it was a black republic.
— Clint Smith (@ClintSmithIII) December 23, 2017
The fact so many journalists avoid using the term racist to describe this president demonstrates the extent to which the truth comes second to the comfort of (white) readers.
— Samuel Sinyangwe (@samswey) December 23, 2017
To my Haitian and Nigerian brothers and sisters that thought African-Americans were wrong about Trump. – He's quoted as says "All Haitian have AIDS" and "Nigerians live in huts" . He's a White Supremacist. He hates Black people.#BlackLivesMatter
— TrueBlackResist (@trueblackresist) December 23, 2017
In the meeting, Trump blamed members of the team forcing John Kelly, then the Secretary of Homeland Security, and Miller to turn their ire on Secretary of State Rex Tillerson for the influx of immigrants — prompting Tillerson to throw up his arms in frustration, per The Times.
The White House has vehemently denied details of the meeting in the report and claimed it all to be lies and falsehoods.
"General Kelly, General McMaster, Secretary Tillerson, Secretary Nielsen, and all other senior staff actually in the meeting deny these outrageous claims and it's both sad and telling the New York Times would print the lies of their anonymous 'sources' anyway," White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said in a statement to CNN.
It has been reported that nearly 60,000 Haitian immigrants sought refuge in the U.S. after the 2010 earthquake and granted provisional legal residency will be forced back to a nation that is not ready for them to return. Haiti has been rocked by recent hurricanes like Hurricane Matthew from 2016 that halted the nation's rebuilding process as well.
By July 2019, the Temporary Protected Status designation for Haiti will end. The TPS is an immigration status that allows refugees to seek a safe haven after a major catastrophe like an earthquake.
"Based on all available information, including recommendations received as part of an inter-agency consultation process, Acting Secretary Duke determined that those extraordinary but temporary conditions caused by the 2010 earthquake no longer exist," a Nov. 20 statement from the Department of Homeland Security said. "Thus, under the applicable statute, the current TPS designation must be terminated."
