President Donald Trump called today “shit holes” to El Salvador, Haiti and several African countries, and suggested that he would prefer to receive more immigrants from Norway in the United States instead of those from those nations, according to The Washington Post.
“Why do we have all these people from countries (which are a) fucking hole coming here?” Trump said during a meeting with lawmakers at the White House, according to the newspaper, which cites two sources familiar with the meeting.
Trump reacted like this when two senators proposed a migratory bill that would grant visas to some of the citizens of countries that have recently been removed from the Temporary Protected Status Program (TPS), such as El Salvador, Haiti, Nicaragua and Sudan.
Trump then suggested that the United States should bring more immigrants from countries such as Norway, with whose prime minister met on Wednesday, according to the Post.
Trump’s comments left impacted the legislators present at the meeting, according to the newspaper, which does not clarify whether the president also referred to Nicaragua with his outburst, and does not identify the affected African countries either.
The Los Angeles Times newspaper confirmed the Post’s report, adding that, before uttering the insult, Trump exclaimed: “Why do we want Haitians here? Why do we want all these people from Africa here?”
Asked about it, a White House spokesman, Raj Shah, did not deny that Trump had made such statements.
“Certain politicians in Washington choose to fight for foreign countries, but President Trump will always fight for the American people,” Shah said in a statement quoted by various media.
“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 integrate into our great nation,” the spokesman added.
Trump “will always reject the temporary, weak and dangerous measures that threaten the lives of hard-working Americans, and that undermine those immigrants who seek a better life in the United States through legal channels,” Shah said.
The bill negotiated by six bipartisan senators would eliminate the so-called “visa lottery” that each year allocates 50,000 visas to citizens of countries with a low rate of emigrants to the United States, a mechanism that mostly benefits African countries.
According to a source in the Senate, who requested anonymity, half of those visas would be reassigned to those that until now were protected by the TPS, and the other half would be reserved for immigrants who showed professional qualities that deserved their entry into the United States. United, the famous “merit” that Trump defends.
The agreement would also open a path to citizenship for more than one million undocumented youth from the country who came to the country as children, known as “dreamers,” and would grant more than $ 1 billion to project and build a physical barrier on the border. with Mexico. (efeusa)
