By JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVIS, JAN. 12, 2018
After President Trump vaguely denied using objectionable language to describe African and Caribbean nations, Senator Richard J. Durbin, Democrat of Illinois, relayed his account of the events. By REUTERS. Photo by Erin Schaff for The New York Times. Watch in Times Video »
WASHINGTON — It was just after President Trump had finished railing in the Oval Office against African immigrants he said came from “shithole countries” when a senior Republican senator, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who was there to negotiate a deal on immigration, spoke up.
“America is an idea, not a race,” Mr. Graham said, according to three people familiar with the exchange on Thursday. Diversity was a strength, he said, not a weakness. And by the way, the senator added, he himself was a descendant of immigrants who came to the United States from “shithole countries with no skills.”
Mr. Trump’s racially charged comments in front of more than half a dozen lawmakers, which also extended to immigrants from Haiti — followed by a day in which members of Congress denounced the president, defended him or stayed silent — now threaten what had been an emerging agreement to protect undocumented immigrants brought to the United States as children.
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https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/12/us/p ... gress.html
