President Donald Trump said he has permanently halted immigration from what he called “third-world countries,” including Afghanistan, Haiti and Somalia, escalating his campaign rhetoric against migrants weeks after announcing a broader suspension of refugee and visa admissions.
Speaking at a rally in Pennsylvania on Tuesday, Trump repeated remarks he has made in the past about preferring immigrants from countries such as Norway and Sweden, and criticised the Biden administration’s immigration policies.
“I’ve also announced a permanent pause on third-world migration — including from hellholes like Afghanistan, Haiti, Somalia, and many other countries. I didn’t say ‘shithole’ — you did!” Trump told the rally.
His comments echoed grievances he previously raised during his first term in 2018, when he questioned why the United States did not accept more immigrants from Scandinavian nations. At the time he denied using derogatory terms reported by lawmakers present at the meeting.
Trump said he objected to taking immigrants from “hellholes like Afghanistan, Haiti, Somalia and many other countries.” He added for emphasis that those places “are a disaster, right? Filthy, dirty, disgusting, ridden with crime.”
Human Rights Watch has criticised the Trump administration’s new immigration restrictions as discriminatory, saying they target specific nationalities based on “punitive animus” rather than security assessments. Tanya Greene, the group’s US program director, said none of the 19 affected countries — which include Afghanistan, Iran, Somalia, Sudan, Yemen, Myanmar, Libya, Cuba, Burundi, Laos, Eritrea, Equatorial Guinea, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan and Haiti — share meaningful security characteristics, “other than being categorised and excluded based on birthplace.”
The administration recently suspended immigration for citizens of those 19 countries and halted all pending asylum applications, following a Nov. 26 incident in Washington, DC, in which an Afghan asylum seeker was accused of attacking two National Guard soldiers, killing one.
Trump has since pledged to block immigration from what he calls “third-world countries” indefinitely and has intensified campaigning on border security ahead of next year’s election.
