The Haitian government has reportedly summoned a US official to explain why President Donald Trump used obscene language in relation to several nations, including Haiti, El Salvador and some African countries.
At a meeting in the Oval Office on Thursday, the US leader reportedly asked why so many people from those countries come to America. Paul Altidor, Haiti's ambassador to the United States, told NBC News contributor Yamiche Alcindor that he and the Haitian government "vehemently condemn" Trump's comments, noting that they were obviously “based on stereotypes.”
"Either the president has been misinformed or he is miseducated,” Altidor said. “Haitians fought along US soldiers in the revolutionary war and we continue to be great contributors to American society,” he added.
According to Alcindor, Ambassador Paul Altidor also said that his country’s embassy in DC has heard from “many US citizens” of Haitian ancestry who are demanding an apology, and has formally summoned a US official to explain Trump’s comments.
The social media community, several Democratic lawmakers among them, came down on Trump like a ton of bricks, denouncing his comments as racist. Illinois state Sen. Kwame Raoul, whose Haitian parents immigrated to the US in the 1950s, said: “I don't think there's any apologizing out of this.
“He’s demonstrated himself to be unfit, unknowledgeable about the history of this country and the history of contributions that immigrants, particularly Haitian immigrants, have made to this country,” the Chicago Democrat added. “It makes me embarrassed to have this guy as the president of my country.''
Farah Larrieux, a Haitian immigrant in Miami who represents a national alliance of people like her who have been granted protections against deportation after natural disasters in their nations, said Trump’s “s***hole” comments are simply “beyond politics.”
“The guy has no respect for anyone. I am trying not to cry… I can't understand how someone goes from making a statement in Little Haiti saying ‘I want to be the biggest champion of Haiti’ to calling Haiti a ‘s***hole.’ It makes me sick.''
Djenane Gourgue of the Haitian-American Chamber of Commerce of Florida said people spend “too much time commenting or watching or being pissed off at what Mr Trump says. That's what he does well...'' he said. “Those words cannot affect me... He's just being a bully.”
US President Donald Trump apparently denied the reported comments later on Twitter, stating that “the language used by me at the DACA meeting was tough, but this was not the language used.” He wrote that the ‘toughest’ thing at the meeting was the “outlandish proposal” made by a bipartisan group on the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. Trump later insisted that he “never said anything derogatory about Haitians other than Haiti is, obviously, a very poor and troubled country.”