The White House has denied a report claiming that President Donald Trump said Nigerians live in huts and Haitians have AIDS, the White House Press Secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders gave the rebuttal on Saturday.
US President, Donald Trump
The United States' White House has denied a report that President Donald Trump suggested Haitian immigrants "all have Aids".
It also denied that President Trump suggested Nigerian immigrants would "never go back to their huts".
According to the New York Times, President Trump was said to have made the comments during a meeting with senior staff about levels of immigration in June, at which he complained too many were receiving US visas.
The White House denied to the New York Times that Trump used the words "Aids" or "huts" in reference to immigrants, calling the suggestions "lies based on anonymous sources".
Sarah Sanders, the White House press secretary, said John Kelly, the White House chief of staff, H.R. McMaster, the national security adviser, and Rex Tillerson, the US Secretary of State, were all in the meeting and denied Trump used the reported words.
She said: "General Kelly, General McMaster, Secretary Tillerson, and all other senior staff actually in the meeting deny these outrageous claims.
"And it's both sad and telling the New York Times would print the lies of their anonymous 'sources' anyway", Sanders said
According to the New York Times, President Trump fumed to his national security team at the meeting that the number of immigrants arriving was undermining his campaign pledge to erect strong borders.
He was then said to have read out a list of how many immigrants from different countries had received visas so far in 2017.
According to the New York Times he said 15,000 had come from Haiti before adding that they "all have Aids".
He then reportedly said 40,000 had come from Nigeria and would never "go back to their huts" once they had seen America. The New York Times said the comments had been reported by two unnamed officials.