Former President Donald Trump stumbled down a well-worn, extremely racist path on Thursday night, striking fear into the hearts of Fox News viewers about how Haitian migrants coming into the United States “probably have AIDS,” and somehow represent a “death wish for our country.”
Calling into his good buddy Sean Hannity’s primetime show on Thursday, Trump grumbled about the surge of asylum-seeking refugees and migrants making their way to the southern U.S. border. According to the twice-impeached ex-president, dozens of countries are purposely sending newly-released prisoners to America.
“I hear it’s 50 countries! They are emptying out their prisons into the United States,” Trump bellowed. “Their jails, some of the toughest people on earth are being dumped into the United States because they don’t want them. They don’t want to take care of them for the next 40 years!”
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Hannity, claiming he is “pro-immigration,” then asked his longtime confidant if migrants seeking to enter the country should at least have a COVID test and a “health check,” prompting Trump to smear those arriving from Haiti.
“So, we have hundreds of thousands of people flowing in from Haiti,” the former president exclaimed. “Haiti has a tremendous AIDS problem. AIDS is a step beyond. AIDS is a real bad problem.”
He continued: “So hundreds of thousands of people are coming into our country and if you look at the stats and you look at the numbers, if you look at just – take a look at what’s happening in Haiti, a tremendous problem with AIDS. Many of those people will probably have AIDS and they’re coming into our country. We don’t do anything about it. We let everybody come in. It’s like a death wish, like a death wish for our country!”
This is far from the first time that Trump has described Haiti and its residents in demeaning and ugly terms, all while resurrecting the AIDS panic to besmirch them. It was reported in Dec. 2017 that Trump ranted to his advisers about Haitian immigrants receiving visas, grumbling that they “all have AIDS.”
The following January, meanwhile, Trump reportedly asked lawmakers “why are we having all these people from shithole countries come here,” specifically pointing to Haiti. Instead, according to reports, the then-president suggested the United States admit more immigrants from places like Norway.
