Trump Asks Why The U.S. Takes Immigrants From 'Shithole Countries' Instead Of Norway, Resolving Long-Standing Concern That America Was Still Choosing Newcomers By Something Other Than The President's Personal Taste

WASHINGTON. In a meeting convened to negotiate bipartisan protections for immigrants from El Salvador, Haiti, and several African nations, President Donald J. Trump on Thursday paused to ask the assembled lawmakers a clarifying question of policy, reportedly inquiring, "Why are we having all these people from shithole countries come here?"

The President, according to multiple members of Congress present in the Oval Office, went on to suggest that the United States should instead seek immigrants from places such as Norway, whose prime minister he had hosted the previous day. Aides characterized the exchange not as an insult but as the introduction of a long-overdue ranking system, under which prospective Americans would at last be evaluated according to the desirability of the nation they were fleeing rather than the older, more cumbersome standards of law, family ties, or danger to their lives.

The remark arrived in the middle of discussions over Temporary Protected Status, a program that had allowed hundreds of thousands of Salvadorans, Haitians, and others to remain legally in the country after earthquakes, hurricanes, and civil collapse. By reframing the question as one of national caliber, the administration was able to set aside the matter of what would happen to those families and take up the more pressing matter of which countries the President liked. Senator Dick Durbin, who confirmed the comments, described the moment as one in which the negotiation simply stopped being about the people it was about.

"The President is sharpening the criteria," said one official familiar with the meeting, explaining that decades of immigration policy had foolishly treated applicants from impoverished or war-torn nations as eligible for entry at all. The official added that the new framework would prioritize arrivals from countries that were, in the President's assessment, doing well, a category understood within the administration to correlate closely with how the country in question looks in an aerial photograph.

The Government of Norway, for its part, did not request the endorsement and declined to comment on its sudden designation as the gold standard of human export. The African Union demanded an apology, and the United Nations human rights office called the comments racist, responses the White House initially declined to dispute before the President offered that he had used "tough" language without specifying which words were the tough ones.

At press time, the President had clarified that he harbored no ill will toward the countries in question and would happily accept their wealthiest residents, their most photogenic landmarks, and none of the people currently trying to come.