Trump’s vulgar immigration remarks alarm lawmakers

Haitians, Africans disparaged with slur during White House meeting

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump on Thursday balked at an immigration deal that would include protections for people from Haiti and some nations in Africa, demanding to know at a White House meeting why he should accept immigrants from “shithole countries” rather than people from places like Norway, according to people with direct knowledge of the conversation.

Trump’s remarks, the latest example of his penchant for racially tinged remarks denigrating immigrants, left members of Congress from both parties attending the meeting in the Cabinet Room alarmed and mystified. He made them during a discussion of an emerging bipartisan deal to give legal status to immigrants illegally brought to the United States as children, the people said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the meeting.

When Trump heard that Haitians were among those who would benefit from the proposed deal, he asked whether they could be left out of the plan, asking, “Why do we want people from Haiti here?”

The comments were reminiscent of ones the president made last year in an Oval Office meeting with Cabinet officials and administration aides, during which he complained about admitting Haitians to the country, saying that they all had AIDS, as well as Nigerians, who he said would never go back to their “huts,” according to officials who heard the statements in person or were briefed on the remarks by people who had. The White House denied last month that Trump made those remarks.

In a written statement, Raj Shah, the White House deputy press secretary, did not deny the account of the meeting Thursday or directly address Trump’s comments.

“Certain Washington politicians choose to fight for foreign countries, but President Trump will always fight for the American people,” Shah said. “Like other nations that have meritbased 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.”

But the president’s vulgar language on a delicate issue left the fate of the broader immigration debate in limbo and had the potential to torpedo the chances of achieving the deal being sought to protect about 800,000 immigrants. And they drew a backlash from Republican and Democratic lawmakers, many of whom called Trump’s utterances unacceptable at best and plainly racist at worst.

Rep. Mia Love, R-Utah, who is of Haitian descent, demanded an apology from the president, saying his comments were “unkind, divisive, elitist, and fly in the face of our nation’s values.”

“This behavior is unacceptable from the leader of our nation,” Love went on in an emotional statement that noted her heritage and that her parents “never took a thing” from the government while achieving the American dream. “The president must apologize to both the American people and the nations he so wantonly maligned.”

“As an American, I am ashamed of the president,” said Rep. Luis V. Gutiérrez, D-Ill. “His comments are disappointing, unbelievable, but not surprising. We always knew that President Trump doesn’t like people from certain countries or people or certain colors. We can now we say with 100 percent confidence that the president is a racist who does not share the values enshrined in our Constitution or Declaration of Independence.”

The episode at the White House, first reported by The Washington Post, unfolded as Trump was hosting a meeting with Sens. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Richard J. Durbin, D-Ill., who are working to codify the protections in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA — the Obama-era initiative that provided temporary work permits and reprieves from deportation to unauthorized immigrants brought to the United States as children by their parents.

Also present were Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., the majority leader; Sen. David Perdue, R-Ga.; Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark.; and Rep. Robert W. Goodlatte, R-Va., the chairman of the Judiciary Committee. None of the lawmakers would comment afterward on the meeting or Trump’s comments.

The plan outlined by Graham and Durbin, according to people familiar with it, would also include more than $2.5 billion for border security and a grant of protected status for the parents of the immigrants, known as Dreamers, who would be barred from sponsoring their parents for citizenship.

Trump grew angry as the group detailed another aspect of the deal — a move to end the diversity visa lottery program and use some of the 50,000 visas that are annually distributed as part of the program to protect vulnerable populations who have been living in the United States under what is known as Temporary Protected Status. That was when Durbin mentioned Haiti, prompting the president’s criticism.

When the discussion turned to African nations, the people with knowledge of the conversation added, Trump asked why he would want “all these people from shithole countries,” adding that the United States should admit more people from places like Norway.

About 83 percent of Norway’s population is ethnic Norwegian, according to a 2017 CIA fact book, making the country overwhelmingly white.

The meeting had gotten off to a grim start after Durbin and Graham, who had been summoned by Trump to discuss their compromise proposal, arrived to find a gaggle of Republicans they had not expected — including immigration hard-liners who have been skeptical of a deal — filing into the room to discuss the plan.

One of them, Cotton of Arkansas, later offered a blistering appraisal of the Durbin-Graham deal, arguing that Democrats had not offered Republicans “anything legitimate in return” for accepting legal status for the Dreamers.

The White House session was the second time this week that Trump has met with members of Congress to address the fate of DACA recipients, whose protections are set to expire in March. On Tuesday, Trump convened a televised bipartisan negotiating session on the issue in which he said he wanted lawmakers to negotiate a “bill of love.”

Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, said Thursday that any immigration compromise could not simply be hammered out by a small group of senators, referring to Durbin and Graham.

“I think what the president told them is it’s fine for them to have negotiated what they think is a reasonable proposal, but what they need to do is share that with others so that it will have broad enough support to actually get passed,” Cornyn said, adding, “We need to have more than six votes for a proposal.”

When he first moved to rescind the DACA program, Trump gave lawmakers six months to come up with a replacement. But Democrats have pressed to include a solution in a broad spending package, which must be completed by a deadline of next Friday, when a short-term bill funding the government will expire.