Trump calls multiple countries ‘sh**holes’ in rant against migration

Donald Trump has angered many after telling a crowd of supporters that he didn’t understand why the US only ‘took people from sh**thole countries’.

It comes years after he denied calling Haiti a ‘sh**hole’ behind closed doors in a meeting with lawmakers, a statement which sparked outrage.

Yesterday, he revisited the subject – and mentioned a few other nations he says won’t be allowed to migrate to the United States.

‘… Hellholes like Afghanistan, Haiti, Somalia and many other countries,’ he began.

An audience member yelled out ‘sh**tholes’, to which Trump replied: ‘I didn’t say sh**hole – you did! We had a meeting, and I said, Why is it we only take people from sh**hole countries? Right?’

He went on to suggest that countries like Norway, Sweden and Denmark should send some ‘nice people’.

‘But we always take people from Somalia, places that are a disaster – filthy, dirty, disgusting, riddled with crime. The only thing they’re good at is going after ships,’ he said.

Trump also went after Somali-born Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, claiming she does ‘nothing but b****’, and saying he ‘loves’ her ‘little turban’.

‘We gotta get her the hell out. She married her brother in order to get in, right … she married her brother to get in, therefore she’s here illegally,’ he claimed.

Omar was born in Somalia before fleeing the Civil War, spending time in a refugee camp and being granted asylum in the United States in 1995.

She was given lawful permanent resident status as a refugee and became a citizen five years later, when she was 17 years old. Omar is not married to her brother, though this is a popular conspiracy among right-wing supporters.

Fact-checking Trump’s migration claims

Trump’s claims that the US only takes migrants from what he calls ‘sh**hole’ countries, which he names as Afghanistan, Haiti, and Somalia, likely stems from the number of refugees America accepts.

In 2021, after the Taliban retook power in Afghanistan, the US helped rescue almost 80,000 Afghans.

In the years before that, the US welcomed refugees from Afghanistan in 1979, during the civil war in the 1990s and after the US-led invasion in 2001, according to Migration Policy.

In fact, the majority of Afghan immigrants moved to countries such as India and Pakistan.

As of 2022, an estimated 731,000 Haitian immigrants – both legal and illegal – resided in the United States, attempting to escape widespread gang violence in their home country.

There are just 98,000 Somali immigrants currently living in the United States, about 83% of whom are naturalised citizens, according to the United States census.

Why is Trump raising issues with these countries?

In recent weeks, Somalia has been at the forefront of political discussion in the United States, after Trump claimed immigrants from the African country were ‘ruining’ the state of Minnesota.

He said it was ‘barely a country’ and referred to Somali immigrants as ‘garbage’. His issues with the country appear to stem from the Islamic State (IS) groups, which have hidden and attacked villages in the country.

Earlier this year, Trump said of the militants: ‘WE WILL FIND YOU, AND WE WILL KILL YOU.’ Local military and police are attempting to find and destroy the terror cells, which the President has been aiding in.

US air strikes in Somalia have doubled since 2024, as Trump tries to target the killers who he said ‘threatened the United States’.

The UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism, Ben Saul, said in May: ‘I recognise the extensive efforts by the Somali authorities to prevent terrorism, through a comprehensive strategy combining law enforcement, military operations, combating violent extremism and addressing the root causes of terrorist recruitment.’

Afghanistan has been brought to the front of Trump’s mind after the shooting of two National Guard members in Washington, DC.

Suspect Rahmanullah Lakanwal, 29, had worked in a special CIA-backed Afghan Army unit before emigrating from Afghanistan.

Hours after the shooting, Trump said: ‘We must now re-examine every single alien from Afghanistan who has entered our country under Biden.’

The shooting compelled the US Citizenship and Immigration Services to halt all immigration requests for Afghans in America until further ‘vetting’ was done.

Haiti is a whole other ballgame. During the Presidential debate last year, Trump’s claims that Haitian immigrants were eating ‘cats and dogs’ in Springfield, Ohio, went viral online.

The claims were never substantiated, but it sparked conversation over immigrants from Haiti, which has been gripped by gang violence for years now.

A deadly earthquake in 2021 killed 2,000 people, with aid unable to reach many who needed it due to the violent conditions.

The assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moise in 2021 led to the collapse of the government, and many Haitians left their country in search of safer areas to live.

Many Haitians sought refuge in the US through Brazil, Chile, and even the deadly Darien Gap, a stretch of jungle between Colombia and Panama.

According to the Migration Policy, the US Border Patrol met 76,100 Haitian refugees at the southern border in 2023.

Trump’s crackdown on migration, with thousands of people already deported as ICE raids continue through American cities, is aiming to tackle these numbers, which he

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