Report: Trump suggested Haitian immigrants to US ‘all have AIDS’

President Trump, while complaining earlier this year about immigration levels during his first months in office, reportedly suggested that Haitian immigrants “all have AIDS.”

According to a New York Times report, Trump did not only single out Haitian immigrants. He also said that Nigerians who gained entrance to the U.S. would never “go back to their huts” in Africa, and that Afghan immigrants came from a terrorist haven.

The remarks came during a meeting in June in which the president reportedly lashed out at what he deemed inadequate efforts to curb the number of foreigners receiving U.S. visas, according to the Times. 

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The White House denied to the Times that Trump ever used “AIDS” or “huts” to refer to immigrants from any country, and several people who attended the meeting said that they did not recall the president using such language.

Trump, who campaigned on a promise to crack down on immigration to the U.S., reportedly told attendees at the meeting that friends had called to tell him that immigration levels made him look foolish.

In his first year in office, Trump has sought to limit immigration. Within days of taking office, he issued the first iteration of an executive order barring citizens of several Muslim-majority countries from traveling to the U.S.

That ban ran into legal difficulties, however, with a number of federal judges limiting or striking down the move.

Two more attempts at implementing the ban followed, and the Supreme Court has agreed to rule on the most recent iteration after litigation in lower courts plays out.

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against that ban on Friday, but said that the Trump administration could continue to bar individuals from countries in the Middle East and North Africa from entering the U.S. if they do not have a “bona fide” relationship with someone in the U.S.

Trump has also sought to build a massive wall between the U.S. and Mexico — perhaps his highest-profile campaign promise — though he has yet to secure the funding needed for that project.