WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump offered a partial denial in public but privately defended his extraordinary remarks disparaging Haitians and African countries.
Trump said he was only expressing what many people think but won’t say about immigrants from economically depressed countries, according to a person who spoke to the president as criticism of his comments ricocheted around the globe.
Trump spent Thursday evening making a flurry of calls to friends and outside advisers to judge their reaction to the tempest, said the confidant, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to disclose a private conversation. Trump wasn’t apologetic about his inflammatory remarks and denied he was racist, instead, blaming the media for distorting his meaning, the confidant said.
Critics of the president, including some in his own Republican Party, took time Friday blasting the vulgar comments he made behind closed doors. In his meeting with a group of senators, he had questioned why the US would accept more immigrants from Haiti and “shithole countries” in Africa as he rejected a bipartisan immigration deal, according to one participant and people briefed on the remarkable Oval Office conversation.
The comments revived charges that the president is racist and roiled immigration talks that were already on tenuous footing.
“The language used by me at the DACA meeting was tough, but this was not the language used,” Trump insisted in a series of Friday morning tweets, pushing back on some depictions of the meeting.
But Trump and his advisers notably did not dispute the most controversial of his remarks: using the word “shithole” to describe African nations and saying he would prefer immigrants from countries like Norway instead.
Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, the only Democrat in the room, said Trump had indeed said what he was reported to have said. The remarks, Durbin said, were “vile, hate-filled and clearly racial in their content.”
He said Trump used the most vulgar term “more than once.”
“If that’s not racism, I don’t know how you can define it,” Florida GOP Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen told WPLG-TV in Miami.
Tweeted Republican Sen. Jeff Flake of Arizona: “The words used by the president, as related to me directly following the meeting by those in attendance, were not ‘tough,’ they were abhorrent and repulsive.”
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., called the comments “beneath the dignity of the presidency” and said Trump’s desire to see more immigrants from countries like Norway was “an effort to set this country back generations by promoting a homogenous, white society.”
Republican leaders were largely silent, though House Speaker Paul Ryan said the vulgar language was “very unfortunate, unhelpful.”
Trump’s insults — along with his rejection of the bipartisan immigration deal that six senators had drafted — also threatened to further complicate efforts to extend protections for hundreds of thousands of young immigrants, many of whom were brought to this country as children and now are here illegally.
Trump last year ended the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which provided protection from deportation along with the ability to work legally in the US He gave Congress until March to come up with a legislative fix.
The three Democratic and three GOP senators who’d struck their proposed deal had been working for months on how to balance those protections with Trump’s demands for border security, an end to a visa lottery aimed at increasing immigrant diversity, and limits to immigrants’ ability to sponsor family members to join them in America.
It’s unclear now how a deal might emerge, and failure could lead to a government shutdown.
“The rhetoric just makes it more difficult, and that’s unfortunate,” said Rep. Mike Simpson, R-Idaho, a senior House lawmaker. “I don’t think it makes it impossible, but I suspect the Democrats are sitting there going, ‘Why would we want to compromise with him on anything?’“
There were also questions about which lawmakers were in position to conduct meaningful talks. John Cornyn of Texas, the No. 2 GOP senator, and other Republicans have derided the group of six senators as having little clout. Initial bargaining has also occurred among a separate group of four leaders — the second-ranking Republican and Democrat from both the House and Senate, a group to which both Cornyn and Durbin belong.
At a forum Friday at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Ryan, R-Wisconsin, said, “We just have to get it done.”
Durbin said, “We have seven days and the clock is ticking. Our bipartisan group continues to build support for the only deal in town.” He said he wants to call the bill to the floor of the Senate early next week.
Lawmakers have until Jan. 19 to approve a government-wide stopgap spending bill, and Republicans will need Democratic votes to push the measure through. But some Democrats have threatened to withhold support unless an immigration pact is forged.
Trump’s comments came as Durbin was presenting details of the compromise plan that included providing $1.6 billion for a first installment of the president’s long-sought border wall.
Trump took particular issue with the idea that people who’d fled to the US after disasters hit their homes in places such as El Salvador, Guatemala and Haiti would be allowed to stay as part of the deal, according to the people, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to publicly describe the discussion.
When it came to talk of extending protections for Haitians, Durbin said Trump replied: “We don’t need more Haitians.’“
“He said ‘Put me down for wanting more Europeans to come to this country. Why don’t we get more people from Norway?” Durbin told reporters in Chicago.
The administration announced last year that it would end a temporary residency permit program that allowed nearly 60,000 Haitians to live and work in the US in the wake of a devastating 2010 earthquake.
Trump insisted Friday that he “never said anything derogatory about Haitians other than Haiti is, obviously, a very poor and troubled country. Never said ‘take them out.’ Made up by Dems.” Trump wrote, “I have a wonderful relationship with Haitians. Probably should record future meetings — unfortunately, no trust!“
Trump did not respond to shouted questions about his comments as he signed a proclamation Friday honoring Martin Luther King Jr. Day, which is Monday.
Sens. David Perdue, R-Ga., and Tom Cotton, R-Arkansas, who both attended the Thursday meeting, said in a statement that they “do not recall the president saying these comments specifically.” What Trump did do, they said, was “call out the imbalance in our current immigration system, which does not protect American workers and our national interest.”
But Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said by Durbin to have voiced objection to Trump’s comments during the meeting, issued a statement that did not dispute the remarks.
“Following comments by the president, I said my piece directly to him yesterday. The president and all those attending the meeting know what I said and how I feel,” Graham said, adding: “I’ve always believed that America is an idea, not defined by its people but by its ideals.”
Trump defends vulgar immigrant comments, partly denies them
Trump defends vulgar immigrant comments, partly denies them
Cambodia welcomes Japanese navy ships to naval base that US suspects is for China’s special use
China and Cambodia have close political, military, and economic ties
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia: Two Japanese naval ships docked Saturday at Cambodia’s Ream Naval Base, whose recently completed Chinese-funded upgrade has heightened US concerns that it will be used as a strategic outpost for China’s navy in the Gulf of Thailand.
The visit by the two minesweepers, the 141-meter (463-foot) -long Bungo and the 67-meter (219-foot) -long Etajima, part of the Japanese Maritime Self Defense Force, marks the first foreign navy visit since the base’s expansion project was completed earlier this month.
Tokyo has developed increasingly close ties with Cambodia in recent years, seeking to offset China’s influence in the region, and Cambodia invited it to make the renovated port’s first port call, widely seen as an attempt to allay Washington’s concerns.
Both Japanese ships, making a four-day port call with a total of 170 sailors, docked at the base’s new pier, where Cambodian officials, including Rear Adm. Mean Savoeun, deputy commander of the base, held a welcome ceremony.
Concerns about China’s activities at the Ream base emerged in 2019 following a Wall Street Journal report alleging a draft agreement that would grant China 30-year use of the base for military personnel, weapon storage, and warship berthing. The US government has publicly and repeatedly aired its concerns.
China and Cambodia have close political, military, and economic ties. They commenced the port project in 2022, which included the demolition of previous naval structures built by the US at the base.
Cambodia has stated that warships from all friendly countries are welcome to dock at the new pier, provided they meet certain conditions. When Japanese Defense Minister Gen. Nakatani announced the planned visit on Tuesday, he said Japan’s port call symbolizes friendship with Cambodia and is key to regional stability and peace.
He stated that the visit would help ensure Cambodia has an open and transparent naval port, while noting the concerns over China’s growing efforts to secure overseas outposts for military expansion.
The port call came just one day after Chinese President Xi Jinping concluded a two-day state visit to Cambodia aimed at further strengthening China’s strong ties with its closest ally in Southeast Asia.
A statement on Saturday from Japan’s embassy in Cambodia stated that the two vessels are on a mission that began in January to visit 11 countries across Africa, the Middle East, South and Southeast Asia. The port call in Cambodia is considered a “historically significant event for Japan-Cambodia relations,” it said.
The embassy emphasized that the journey of the Japanese vessels “underlines the importance of freedom of navigation, free and open international order based on international law, and its development.”
In December last year, a US Navy warship called at the nearby civilian port of Sihanoukville on a five-day visit. The visit by the USS Savannah, carrying a crew of 103, was the first in eight years by a US military vessel to Cambodia.
A US citizen was held for pickup by ICE even after proving he was born in the country
- It is unclear if Lopez Gomez showed documents proving he is a citizen to the arresting officers
- Court records show Judge Lashawn Riggans found no basis for the charge
MIAMI, USA: A US citizen was arrested in Florida for allegedly being in the country illegally and held for pickup by immigration authorities even after his mother showed a judge her son’s birth certificate and the judge dismissed charges.
Juan Carlos Lopez Gomez, 20, was in a car that was stopped just past the Georgia state line by the Florida Highway Patrol on Wednesday, said Thomas Kennedy, a spokesperson at the Florida Immigrant Coalition.
Gomez and others in the car were arrested under a new Florida law, which is on hold, making it a crime for people who are in the country illegally to enter the state.
It is unclear if Lopez Gomez showed documents proving he is a citizen to the arresting officers. He was held at Leon County Jail and released after his case received widespread media coverage.
The charge of illegal entry into Florida was dropped Thursday after his mother showed the judge his state identification card, birth certificate and Social Security card, said Kennedy, who attended the hearing.
Court records show Judge Lashawn Riggans found no basis for the charge.
Lopez Gomez briefly remained in custody after US Immigration and Customs Enforcement requested he remain there for 48 hours, a common practice when the agency wants to take custody of someone. ICE did not respond to a request for comment.
The case drew widespread attention because ICE is not supposed to take custody of US-born citizens. While the immigration agency can occasionally get involved in cases of naturalized citizens who committed offenses such as lying on immigration forms, it has no authority over people born in the US
Adding to the confusion is a federal judge’s ruling to put a hold on enforcement of the Florida law against people who are in the country illegally entering the state, which meant it should not have been enforced.
“No one should be arrested under that law, let alone a US citizen,” said Alana Greer, an immigration attorney from the Florida Immigrant Coalition. “They saw this person, he didn’t speak English particularly well, and so they arrested him and charged him with this law that no one (should) be charged with.”
Money, power, violence in high-stakes Philippine elections
- The country’s elections commission, Comelec, recorded 46 acts of political violence
- Comelec said “fewer than 20” candidates have been killed so far this campaign season, which it notes is a drop
MANILA: Philippines election hopefuls like mayoral candidate Kerwin Espinosa have to ask themselves whether the job is worth taking a bullet.
The country’s elections commission, Comelec, recorded 46 acts of political violence between January 12 and April 11, including the shooting of Espinosa.
At a rally this month, someone from the crowd fired a bullet that went through his chest and exited his arm, leaving him bleeding but alive.
Others have been less lucky.
A city council hopeful, a polling officer and a village chief were among those killed in similar attacks in the run-up to mid-term elections on May 12.
Comelec said “fewer than 20” candidates have been killed so far this campaign season, which it notes is a drop.
“This is much lower, very low compared to the past,” commission spokesperson John Rex Laudiangco told AFP, citing a tally of about 100 deaths in the last general election.
Analysts warned that such violence will likely remain a fixture of the Philippines’ political landscape.
The immense influence of the posts is seen as something worth killing for.
Holding municipal office means control over jobs, police departments and disbursements of national tax funds, said Danilo Reyes, an associate professor at the University of the Philippines’ political science department.
“Local chief executives have discretion when it comes to how to allocate the funding, which projects, priorities,” he said.
Rule of law that becomes weaker the farther one gets from Manila also means that regional powerbrokers can act with effective impunity, said Cleve Arguelles, CEO of Manila-based WR Numero Research.
“Local political elites have their own kingdoms, armed groups and... patronage networks,” he said, noting violence is typically highest in the archipelago nation’s far north and south.
“The stakes are usually high in a local area where only one family is dominant or where there is involvement of private armed groups,” Arguelles said.
“If you lose control of... city hall, you don’t just lose popular support. You actually lose both economic and political power.”
In the absence of strong institutions to mediate disagreements, Reyes said, “confrontational violence” becomes the go-to.
Espinosa was waiting for his turn to speak at a campaign stop in central Leyte province on April 10 when a shooter emerged from the crowd and fired from about 50 meters (164 feet) away, according to police.
Police Brig. Gen. Jean Fajardo told reporters this week that seven police officers were “being investigated” as suspects.
Convictions, however, are hard to come by.
While Comelec’s Laudiangco insisted recent election-related shootings were all making their way through regional court systems, he could provide no numbers.
Data compiled by the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data project show that in 79 percent of violent acts targeting local government members between 2018 and 2022 the perpetrators were never identified.
National-level politicians, meanwhile, reliant on local political bases to deliver votes, have little incentive to press for serious investigations, said Reyes.
“The only way you can ensure national leaders win positions is for local allies to deliver votes,” he said.
“There are convictions but very rarely, and it depends on the potential political fallout on the national leaders as well as the local leaders.”
It’s part of the “grand bargain” in Philippine politics, Arguelles said.
Local elites are “tolerated by the national government so long as during election day they can also deliver votes when they’re needed.”
Three days after Espinosa’s shooting, a district board candidate and his driver were rushed to hospital after someone opened fire on them in the autonomous area of Mindanao.
Election-season violence has long plagued the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, known as the BARMM.
Comelec assumed “direct control” over the municipalities of Buluan and Datu Odin Sinsuat after municipal election officer Bai Maceda Lidasan Abo and her husband were shot dead last month.
Since last year, Comelec has held the power to directly control and supervise not only local election officials but also law enforcement.
Top police officials in the two municipalities were removed for “gross negligence and incompetence” after allegedly ignoring requests to provide security details for the slain Comelec official.
Their suspensions, however, will last only from “campaigning up to... the swearing-in of the winners,” Comelec’s Laudiangco said.
The commission’s actions were part of a “tried and tested security plan” that is showing real results, he said.
But he conceded that the interwoven nature of family, power and politics in the provinces would continue to create a combustible brew.
“You have a lot of closely related people in one given jurisdiction... That ensures polarization. It becomes personal between neighbors.
“We all know Filipinos are clannish, that’s our culture. But we’re improving slowly.”
Afghan FM tells Pakistan’s top diplomat deportations are ‘disappointment’
- Pakistan has launched a strict campaign to evict by the end of the month more than 800,000 Afghans
- “Muttaqi expressed his deep concern and disappointment over the situation and forced deportation of Afghan refugees in Pakistan,” Ahmad said
KABUL: Afghanistan’s foreign minister expressed “deep concern and disappointment” to his Pakistani counterpart on Saturday over the forced deportation of tens of thousands of Afghans since the start of April.
Pakistan has launched a strict campaign to evict by the end of the month more than 800,000 Afghans who have had their residence permits canceled, including some who were born in Pakistan or lived there for decades.
Pakistan’s top diplomat Ishaq Dar flew to Kabul for a day-long visit on Saturday where he held discussions with Afghan Taliban officials, including Prime Minister Hasan Akhund and Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi.
“Muttaqi expressed his deep concern and disappointment over the situation and forced deportation of Afghan refugees in Pakistan,” the Afghan foreign ministry’s deputy spokesperson Zia Ahmad said on X.
“He strongly urged Pakistani authorities to prevent the suppression of the rights of Afghans living there and those coming here.”
Ahmad added that Dar reassured officials that Afghans “will not be mistreated.”
Afghans in Pakistan have reported weeks of arbitrary arrests, extortion and harassment by authorities as they ramp up their campaign to expel migrants.
Islamabad has said nearly 85,000 have already crossed into Afghanistan, with convoys of Afghan families heading to border crossings each day fearing raids, arrests or separation from family members.
On Friday, Pakistan’s deputy interior minister Tallal Chaudhry told a news conference that “there will not be any sort of leniency and extension in the deadline.”
“When you arrive without any documents, it only deepens the uncertainty of whether you’re involved in narcotics trafficking, supporting terrorism, or committing other crimes,” he added.
Analysts, however, say it is a politically motivated strategy to put pressure on Afghanistan’s Taliban government over escalating security concerns.
The relationship between the two neighbors has soured as attacks in Pakistan’s border regions have soared, following the return of the Taliban government in Kabul in 2021.
Last year was the deadliest in Pakistan for a decade, with Islamabad accusing Kabul of allowing militants to take refuge in Afghanistan, from where they plan attacks.
The Taliban government denies the charge.
Chaudhry said on Friday that nearly 85,000 Afghans have crossed into Afghanistan since the start of April, the majority of them undocumented.
More than half of them were children, according to the United Nations refugee agency, entering a country where girls and women are banned from education after secondary school and barred from many sectors of work.
Afghanistan’s refugees ministry spokesman told AFP on Saturday the Taliban authorities had recorded some 71,000 Afghan returnees through the two main border points with Pakistan between April 1 and 18.
In the first phase of returns in 2023, hundreds of thousands of undocumented Afghans were forced across the border in the space of a few weeks.
In the second phase announced in March, the Pakistan government canceled the residence permits of more than 800,000 Afghans and warned thousands more awaiting relocation to other countries to leave by the end of April.
Millions of Afghans have poured into Pakistan over the past several decades to flee successive wars, but tensions with the Afghan community have risen as Pakistan’s economic and security concerns have deepened.
The move to expel Afghans is widely supported by Pakistanis.
“They are totally disrespectful toward our country. They have abused us, they have used us. One can’t live in a country if they don’t respect it,” said Ahmad Waleed, standing in his shop on Friday in Rawalpindi, near the capital.
Despite small diaspora share, Gulf-based Indians send home 40% of remittances
- India’s diaspora is one of the largest, accounting for 35.4 million people
- Most Indians in Gulf countries do not plan to settle there and focus on earning
New Delhi: Despite making up only about one-quarter of India’s overseas population, Indian nationals in Gulf states send almost 40 percent of the country’s bank remittances, the latest data shows.
India’s diaspora is one of the largest, accounting for 35.4 million people, based on last month’s estimates submitted to parliament by Minister of State for External Affairs Pabitra Margherita.
Members of the diaspora are a key source of India’s foreign currency inflows and, in the fiscal year 2023–24, sent home $118.7 billion, according to a remittances survey released in March by the Reserve Bank of India.
Indians living and working in the six Gulf Cooperation Council countries accounted for almost 40 percent of this amount, led by those in the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Qatar — 19.2 percent, 6.7 percent and 4.1 percent, respectively.
The 40-percent remittance share from Gulf-based Indians is disproportionately high compared to their share of the overall diaspora. Of the 35.4 million Indians living abroad, only 9.7 million — just slightly more than one-quarter — reside in GCC countries, according to data from India’s Ministry of External Affairs.
Dr. S. Irudaya Rajan, chair of the International Institute for Migration and Development in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, attributes the imbalance to the nature of Indian migration in the Middle East.
“People who go to work in the Gulf don’t plan to settle there, but work and bring money home and support the family ... they are coming to make money and secure their future in India,” Rajan told Arab News.
“They went to earn money with double work, midnight work, evening work, overtime work to send it back home.”
The reason why many of them are able to save and send more is that most travel to Gulf countries alone, focusing on work as there are no prospects of obtaining citizenship — unlike in other major migration destinations like the US and UK.
Out of the 4.3 million Indians living in the UAE, 2.65 million in Saudi Arabia, 1 million in Kuwait, 830,000 in Qatar, 665,000 in Oman and 350,000 in Bahrain, the majority were either unmarried or had their family waiting for them back home.
“Eighty percent of them are living alone ... they are not taking their wives, they are not taking their children,” Rajan said.
“Either they are unmarried and are sending money to their parents, or they are married and sending it to their wives and their parents, or they are sending it to their children studying in some other country.”
The actual amount of remittance coming from overseas Indians was likely much higher than what the central bank indicated. While the RBI’s survey covered 30 banks, two money transfer operators and two fintech companies in the cross-border remittance business, inward remittances from the Gulf also reach India through informal means.
Given the region’s proximity and frequent and cheap flights, money can be easily brought from places like Dubai without relying on bank transfers — unlike remittances from Europe, Singapore, or the US.
“From the informal channel, it can be as much as the formal channel,” Rajan said.
“All estimates on remittances are underestimated. The government of India, the World Bank, the RBI — all will underestimate the remittance because they can calculate it only from the formal channel.”
While the central bank’s data has shown an increase in the remittance share from the West and a drop from the Middle East compared with the previous survey in 2016-17, Rajan forecast that the Gulf will still continue to play a major role.
“These remittances coming from Canada, Australia (and the US), are more because they are vacating the place and coming home. People who are coming from America will bring all their savings, all that they had in America, so this is a short-term trend,” he said.
“I think the Gulf will bounce back ... the future will be very uncertain for migration, but Gulf migration will continue for at least the next 15 to 20 years.”
