When news of bipartisan meeting to reach a consensus on immigration, media outlets broke the story that US President Trump used the term ”shithole” in reference to Haiti, El Salvador, and African countries.
Comments which were met with swift criticism, in the words of a spokesman for the UN Human Rights Commission “You cannot dismiss entire countries and continents as ‘s***holes,’ whose entire populations, who are not white, are therefore not welcome,” the spokesman continued.“This isn’t just a story about vulgar language, it’s about opening the door to humanity’s worst side, about validating and encouraging racism and xenophobia.”
Early Friday morning, the President took to Twitter ”The language used by me at the DACA meeting was tough, but this was not the language used. What was really tough was the outlandish proposal made – a big setback for DACA!”
Staffers at the Trump White House had not refuted or confirmed Thursday that those words were used by the President which was first reported by The Washington Post and later confirmed by other outlets.
Still attempting to curtail the media circus, Trump capitalized on remarks attributed to him about Haiti ”Never said anything derogatory about Haitians other than Haiti is, obviously, a very poor and troubled country. Never said “take them out.” Made up by Dems. I have a wonderful relationship with Haitians. Probably should record future meetings – unfortunately, no trust!
It’s reported the President singled out Haiti, telling Capitol Hill officials that immigrants from there should be left out of any deal. Back in November, his administration rescinded deportation protection for some 60.000 Haitians after the 2010 earthquake which ravished the Carribean island nation, giving them until July 2019 to return home.
Neba Benson,
BaretaNews Foreign Correspondent/Analyst