‘The Haitians all have Aids’: White House denies Donald Trump made offensive remarks about black immigrants
Trump also reportedly said 40,000 from Nigeria would never want to ‘go back to their huts’ in Africa
The White House is disputing a report in The New York Times that President Donald Trump allegedly made offensive comments about black immigrants – specifically Haitians and Nigerians. But low confidence in the president combined with his history of controversial comments about immigrants and black people have led some to approach the White House’s denial with disbelief.
During a June Oval Office meeting attended by top White House officials, the president was supposedly angered by just how many immigrants had received visas to enter the US in 2017, according to six officials who attended or were briefed about the meeting.
Trump had won the 2016 presidential election after promising to be tough on immigration, and his immigration ban was constantly facing pushback and criticism from activists, some members of his own party and the courts.
The Times reported that Trump had read a list revealing the number of immigrants that had entered the country. “Haiti had sent 15,000 people. They all have Aids,” he grumbled, according to one person who attended the meeting and another person who was briefed about it by a different person who was there.
Another 40,000 had come from Nigeria, Trump reportedly added. Once they had seen the United States, they would never “go back to their huts” in Africa, recalled the two officials, who asked for anonymity to discuss a sensitive conversation in the Oval Office.
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders attacked the reporting on Saturday in the White House denial.
