Donald Trump told Fox News on Thursday night that he thought Haitian migrants coming to the US 'will probably have AIDS.' The...
Donald Trump told Fox News on Thursday night that he thought Haitian migrants coming to the US 'will probably have AIDS.'
The former president said accepting the asylum-seekers would be a 'death wish' for the US.
A record-shattering number of Haitian migrants have come to the US in the last month, and the trend doesn't appear to be stopping as more people continue to pour into the Colombian town of Necocli, a popular spot for smugglers to shepherd people through the perilous Darien Gap.
The Darien Gap is a 66-mile stretch of rainforest between North and South America. Its dangerous terrain is part of the reason it's been left undeveloped and why it poses such a great risk to the people crossing it now.
More than 70,000 migrants have traveled through the Darien Gap this year, Panamanian authorities have said.
Most of the migrants in recent months have been Haitians, many of whom had been living in Chile and Brazil since the 2010 Haitian earthquake.
'So, we have hundreds of thousands of people flowing in from Haiti. Haiti has a tremendous AIDS problem. AIDS is a step beyond. AIDS is a real bad problem,' Trump told host Sean Hannity.
'Many of those people will probably have AIDS and they’re coming into our country. And we don’t do anything about it. We let everybody come in.'
Migrants, most from Haiti, depart a base camp towards the jungle in the infamous Darien Gap while on their journey towards the United States on October 7. The number of Haitian migrants heading to the US has skyrocketed in recent weeks
Mostly Haitian migrants break camp at sunrise on October 7 before trekking through the 66-mile stretch of undeveloped, unpoliced rainforest
More than 70,000 migrants have traveled through the Darien Gap this year, Panamanian authorities have said
He added, 'Sean, it's like a death wish. It's like a death wish for our country.'
Trump infamously once referred to Haiti as a 'sh*thole country' during a meeting with bipartisan senators at the White House in 2018.
At another point in the interview Trump claimed without proof that '50 countries' including Honduras, Mexico and El Salvador are 'emptying their prisons' and sending inmates to the US.
'I hear it's 50 countries, they're emptying out their prisons into the United States,' he said. 'Some of the toughest people on Earth are being dumped into the United States because they don't want them.'
'So these people that are the roughest prisoners there are anywhere are being dumped into the United States for us to take care of them.'
He said 'hundreds of thousands of people' were pouring in every two weeks.
Nearly 28,000 Haitian migrants were encountered by Border Patrol agents along the US-Mexico border in Fiscal Year 2021, which ended September 30.
In 2020, the number was 4,395.
'We have hundreds of thousands of people pouring in every two weeks, and coming from countries - we don't even know from where they're coming and you know, they're emptying out many countries,' Trump said.
Many of the Haitians now embarking on the dangerous journey to the United States fled their country for South America in 2010, and are now are leaving for the US through towns like Acandi in Colombia and trekking across the Darien Gap. The COVID-19 pandemic has been blamed for upending much of South and Central America's economy, forcing people already in a precarious position into desperation
A group of migrants trek from a base camp toward the jungle in the Darien Gap on October 7
The passage, which can take up to a week, is considered the most dangerous stretch for migrants traveling from South America to the US
Most of the Haitian migrants attempting to travel to the US have been living in Brazil and Chile since the 2010 Haitian earthquake
Nearly 28,000 Haitian migrants were encountered by Border Patrol agents along the US-Mexico border in Fiscal Year 2021
Last month around 15,000 mostly Haitian migrants camped near a bridge in Del Rio, Texas.
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said at the time, 'It is unprecedented for us to see that number of people arrive in one discrete point along the border in such a compacted period of time.'
Images of the cramped, squalid tent city they were living in prompted a humanitarian outcry against the Biden administration.
Earlier this week the Washington Examiner reported that border officials are bracing for an incoming surge of as many as 60,000 Haitian migrants.
It comes against the backdrop of a record-setting number of asylum-seekers coming to the southern border since President Biden took office.
Republican lawmakers have blamed Biden's rollback of 'inhumane' Trump-era border policies as the driving force behind the spike for sending a message that the US is 'open' amid a deadly COVID-19 pandemic.
Migrants from Haiti spend a night at a base camp on October 6 before trekking through the infamous Darien Gap to try and claim asylum in the US
Earlier this week the Washington Examiner reported that border officials are bracing for an incoming surge of as many as 60,000 Haitian migrants
Nearly 28,000 Haitian migrants were encountered by Border Patrol agents along the US-Mexico border in Fiscal Year 2021, which ended September 30
Trump infamously once referred to Haiti as a 'sh*thole country' in 2018 (pictured: Migrants camped out in Las Tekas, Columbia before continuing on their journey to the US)
One of Biden's first acts in office was halting construction on Trump's border wall. DHS has been engaged in an ongoing legal battle to repeal his Remain in Mexico policy. He's also rolled back the scope of Border Agents' law enforcement and patrol duties, leaving parts of the southern border thinly guarded.
But Biden's had a tough time pleasing even his own side with his border policies.
His White House is fighting in the US court system to keep Trump's Title 42 policy in place, which allowed border agents to immediately expel migrants apprehended at the border due to a possible COVID-19 health risk.
Despite Biden significantly rolling back its enforcement, immigration advocates and progressive Democrats have attacked the president for not sticking to his promise to re-write Trump's severe immigration policies.
In his Thursday interview Trump appeared to take a jab at Biden and Democrats' border handling, declaring, 'the border was the strongest we had probably ever, and all they had to do was leave it alone.'
'Somebody doesn't love our country, when they allow this to happen to our country,' he said.
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