Immigration talks get vulgar
Trump uses an obscenity during bipartisan negotiations with lawmakers on protections
WASHINGTON — President Trump inflamed already precarious negotiations over protecting young immigrants Thursday by denouncing immigrants from “shithole countries” such as Haiti and African nations during a White House meeting with lawmakers.
“Why are we having all these people from shithole countries come here?” Trump asked in frustration during discussions over a bipartisan proposal that included visas for immigrants from these countries, according to people briefed on the White House meeting.
He suggested that the United States should admit more people from countries like Norway, a largely white country whose prime minister he met with Wednesday.
The president made the comments as Republicans in Congress appeared to be
President Trump said during the talks on immigrants: “What do we want people from Haiti here for? Why do we want all these people from Africa here?”
gaining leverage on negotiations over immigration policy, solidifying around a strategy to demand major restrictions on legal immigration, a longsought conservative goal, in exchange for permanent protection for roughly 700,000 young immigrants.
His remarks suddenly threw a potent racial cast over a policy debate about allowing immigrants to sponsor their extended families and the diversity visa lottery that admits 50,000 immigrants a year from countries that do not have family networks already established in the United States. Many are from African, Caribbean and other nations of color.
The president made clear he wanted the lottery ended, using racially explosive language.
“What do we want people from Haiti here for?” he asked, according to those who were briefed. “Why do we want all these people from Africa here? Why do we want all these people from shithole countries?”
In a written statement put out hours later, a White House press secretary neither denied nor directly addressed Trump’s remarks.
“Certain Washington politicians choose to fight for foreign countries, but President Trump will always fight for the American people,” said Raj Shah, principal deputy White House press secretary, in the statement.
“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,” Shah said.
Republicans were mostly silent on Trump’s comments, while Democrats were dismissive.
“Immigrants from countries across the globe — including and especially those from Haiti and all parts of Africa — have helped build this country,” said Sen. Kamala Harris, a California Democrat who has been pushing for protecting “Dreamers” and whose mother came from India and father from Jamaica. “They should be welcomed and celebrated, not demeaned and insulted.”
In a tweet, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco said, “Sad comment from @realDonaldTrump. All the more reason to focus on getting an agreement on DACA as soon as possible.”
With time running out on the temporary program that has granted them legal status, the “Dreamers” — who arrived in the country as children and grew up as Americans — are caught not only in a classic immigration battle that has stymied immigration overhauls under the last two administrations, but one that Trump has now racially inflamed.
A third of the young immigrants live in California, and enrolled in the Obama administration’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program known as DACA that started in 2012. Trump canceled the program last fall and gave Congress six months to devise a legislative fix. That deadline is March 5. Both parties in Congress had been aiming at next Friday to pass a DACA measure as part of a must-pass spending bill, but that date at this point seems ambitious.
Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, which has pushed for restrictions on legal immigration, said Trump’s comments won’t make much difference because Democrats would never agree to reductions in legal immigration.
“Whether the president spoke in his trademark vulgar style or whether he used mellifluous tones, it wouldn’t make any difference honestly in this case,” Krikorian said.
Democrats widely insisted Thursday on a “clean” immigration bill dealing only with the “Dreamers” and some border-strengthening. Republicans said any bill would have to meet four parameters outlined at a televised bipartisan meeting at the White House on Tuesday that included the visa lottery and visas for extended family members, which Republicans call chain migration because each category of relatives is able in turn to sponsor more relatives.
House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Bakersfield, is one of the lead players in the negotiations among the two chambers of Congress and the White House.
The plan that caused Trump to erupt was floated by a bipartisan group of six senators who have been working for months on a DACA bill and announced that they had reached an agreement Thursday. White House Legislative Affairs Director Marc Short said it would not satisfy the White House.
The Senate’s second-ranking Republican, John Cornyn of Texas, said the proposal still lacked broad support. “My job is to count votes, and we need more than six votes,” Cornyn said, reiterating that any fix for the “Dreamers” must include the “four pillars.”
The bipartisan Senate group proposed providing legal status not only for DACA enrollees, but also those who were eligible but failed to sign up for the program. It would provide less than $3 billion for a border barrier, surveillance and other border “priorities,” a sum far short of the $18 billion the White House wants to build a wall on the southern border.
The plan would allow the parents of “Dreamers” to gain temporary protected status as well, but not citizenship. And it would shift some of the 50,000 diversity visas to Haitians who recently lost their temporary protected status after the administration canceled that program.
Even before Trump’s comments, members of the Congressional Black Caucus were drawing a line in the sand over any changes to the diversity visa lottery, which is used heavily by African and Caribbean immigrants.
“You’re going to cut off the part that brings people of dark skin, brown skin, but you're going to leave the ones for the white complexion?” said Rep. Brenda Lawrence, D-Mich., who said the caucus was applying pressure on Democratic leaders to hold firm on the visa lottery. “What are we doing here? When you step back and look at that, why did you identify that as one to eliminate?
“This is not a population that has been identified as terrorist and all these stereotypes that you place on people. They work, they are people who are highly educated, they speak multiple languages, so what is your objective? It’s offensive to me.”
Lawrence said she would not vote for a bill that provided protections for “Dreamers” if it included elimination of the visa lottery.
Trump has made racially tinged comments in the past, accusing Haitians of all having AIDS, and referring to Africans living in huts, among many others.
At a news conference Thursday, Pelosi criticized the composition of the chief negotiators on the “Dreamer” issue, a group that includes McCarthy, calling them “the five white guys.”
“What are they going to do, open a hamburger stand?” she said.
About 15,000 DACA immigrants have already lost their legal status as they have been unable to renew their DACA applications. A federal judge in San Francisco on Tuesday imposed a nationwide injunction that will keep the program alive until review by a higher court. The administration has promised a swift appeal. Fearing a negative ruling either way, both parties agree that Congress should pass legislation to provide the “Dreamers” permanent legal status.
“Immigrants from countries across the globe — including and especially those from Haiti and all parts of Africa — have helped build this country. They should be welcomed and celebrated, not demeaned and insulted.” Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif.