Quick Answer: Trump’s Disgusting Remarks and His New Anti-Immigrant Rally Cry

In December 2025, Donald Trump publicly embraced the phrase he once denied — calling Haiti and African countries “s—hole nations.” At a Pennsylvania rally, as documented by
ABC News, he went further:

“Filthy”

“Dirty”

“Disgusting”

“Ridden with crime”

Days earlier, in a Cabinet meeting covered by
Reuters, Trump referred to Somali immigrants as “garbage.”

At the same moment, USCIS implemented the sweeping PM-602-0192 freeze — halting and re-reviewing cases from 19 predominantly non-European nations.

This article ties the rhetoric to the reality: policy shifts, enforcement trends, and community impact.

Trump’s rhetoric at the rallies reflects a Trump new anti-immigrant rally cry that resonates with his supporters.

Fast Facts

Trump now openly admits using the “s—hole countries” slur he denied in 2018
– Source:
Washington Post
His 2025 rally rhetoric includes words like:
– “Filthy”
– “Dirty”
– “Disgusting”
– “Ridden with crime”
– Source:
ABC News
He described Somali immigrants as “garbage”
– Source:
Reuters
USCIS issued PM-602-0192, freezing and re-reviewing asylum and benefits from 19 “high-risk” countries
– HLG coverage:
Frozen Files: USCIS PM-602-0192 Freeze Halts Cases for 19 High-Risk Countries
Immigration applications from those countries are paused, as reported by
The Guardian
AI-based vetting and social-media screening have intensified
– HLG coverage:
Unveiling the Powerful USCIS Vetting Center Atlanta AI Hub 2026

1. Trump’s 2025 Remarks — Clearly Pulled Out

“S—hole Countries” — Admission and Celebration

From the Pennsylvania rally
(ABC News):

“You remember when they said I called them s—hole countries? I did. I said it. And I was right.”

“Filthy, Dirty, Disgusting”

Same rally:

“Some of these places are filthy, dirty, disgusting, ridden with crime. Why would we take people from there?”

Preference for Europeans

Trump repeated his earlier sentiment:

“Why can’t we get people from Norway? From Denmark?”

“Garbage” — Direct Attack on Somali Immigrants

As documented by
Reuters:

“We’re going to go the wrong way if we keep taking garbage into our country.”

“Somalis are garbage. I don’t want them here.”

This is one of the most direct dehumanizing phrases Trump has ever used toward a specific immigrant group.

2. Expert Reaction — Richard T. Herman, Immigration Attorney

“Immigration law must be based on evidence — not insults. When a president calls entire communities ‘filthy’ or ‘garbage,’ it sends the wrong signal to government officers and undermines the rule of law.”

“For more than thirty years I’ve represented immigrants from Somalia, Haiti, Africa, Asia, Latin America, Europe. I’ve seen extraordinary talent and humanity across every nationality. Our system cannot function if whole countries are dismissed as trash.”

These statements are rights-based, legally grounded, and appropriate for journalists to quote.

3. How Trump’s Words Map Onto Actual Policy

Well before the December remarks, immigration agencies began shifting toward a nationality-based enforcement model.

A. PM-602-0192 — The Case Freeze

See HLG analysis:
Frozen Files: USCIS PM-602-0192 Freeze Halts Cases for 19 High-Risk Countries

The memo orders USCIS officers to:

Pause all asylum decisions for nationals of 19 countries
Freeze and re-review pending green cards, work permits, naturalization
Re-open previously approved cases for “new security screening”
Treat nationality as a built-in “risk factor”

B. AI Vetting & Social-Media Scrutiny

HLG:

Key changes:

Continuous monitoring of applicants
Automated risk scoring
Algorithmic “nationality flags”
Deep social-media inspection
Identity re-verification loops

C. Enforcement at Interviews

HLG reporting:

Patterns documented:

More ICE presence during USCIS interviews
Arrests for minor overstays
Nationality-linked referrals
N-400 oath ceremony cancellations

This looks increasingly like a system built around disfavored nationalities — the same nationalities Trump calls “disgusting” or “garbage.”

4. Countries and Communities Most Affected

A. Overlap Between Slurs and Policy Lists

Countries Trump attacked:

Somalia
Haiti
Several African nations

Countries frozen under PM-602-0192 include:

Somalia
Eritrea
Sudan
Nigeria
Cameroon
DRC
Mali
Chad
Afghanistan
Iran
Libya
Syria
Yemen
Haiti
Cuba
Venezuela
(and others)

The overlap is unmistakable.

B. Immigrants Facing New Hardships

Affected groups include:

Asylum seekers
Marriage-based green-card applicants
Naturalization applicants
Students and workers from flagged countries
Refugees seeking adjustment of status
People who already had approvals

HLG:
Why USCIS Says “Actively Reviewing My Case” – Meaning 2025–2026

5. Data Signals to Watch

Journalists and analysts should monitor:

Asylum

Nationwide decision freeze
Backlog growth
HLG:
Asylum Suspension 2025: Crushing Insights and Analysis

Benefits

Surge in RFEs / NOIDs
Nationality-based holds
Case “resets”

Enforcement

ICE arrests at USCIS offices
Oath ceremony cancellations
HLG:
N-400 Approved — Oath Ceremony Cancelled?
7 Jaw-Dropping Insights on USCIS Oath Ceremony Cancelled

6. Why This Language Matters

Trump’s use of terms like “garbage,” “filthy,” “disgusting,” and “s—hole” is not random. Such language:

Signals institutional permission for discriminatory treatment
Influences adjudicators’ subconscious risk interpretations
Reinforces nationality as a proxy for danger
Creates a hostile environment for applicants from Black, Muslim, and refugee-producing countries
Raises constitutional questions (equal protection, due process)

It is not simply rhetoric — it is policy-shaping.

The Psychology of the “Other”: Why Dehumanizing Language Works — and Why It’s Dangerous

When a political leader labels entire nations as “filthy,” “disgusting,” or “garbage,” they are not simply insulting foreign countries — they are activating a deep, well-studied psychological process known as othering.

Othering is a cognitive shortcut in which:

Complex groups become reduced to a single trait
Individuals are stripped of nuance
Outsiders are framed as threats
Prejudice becomes easier to justify
Violence or exclusion becomes thinkable

In social psychology, this is the early stage of what scholars call dehumanization — the assignment of sub-human characteristics (filth, disgust, garbage) to specific groups as a way to justify unequal treatment.

Research in political cognition shows that:

Words like “filthy” and “disgusting” activate the brain’s pathogen-avoidance circuitry, making audiences feel “contaminated” by the presence of outsiders.
Dehumanizing metaphors (“infestation,” “invasion,” “garbage”) spark fear-driven reactions tied to survival instincts.
Negative emotion increases political obedience, in-group solidarity, and punishment support.

In other words, this kind of language isn’t random. It’s neuropolitically effective.

It moves people from:

“I disagree with those immigrants”
to
“They don’t belong in my society at all.”

For immigration policy, this shift is catastrophic. It turns legal systems designed for the protection of families, refugees, and workers into enforcement-first instruments shaped by fear, not facts.

And when a president uses these terms, the effect is multiplied through:

bureaucratic culture
adjudicator psychology
enforcement priorities
media framing
community responses

This is not merely rhetoric — it is a psychological tool for restructuring public morality.

The Invisible Victims: How Racist and Xenophobic Political Language Harms Children

Children are often the most vulnerable targets of xenophobic political discourse — even when the words are not directed at them personally.

1. Immigrant children internalize fear

When children hear their ancestral country called “filthy,” “disgusting,” or “garbage,” they interpret it as:

“Something is wrong with me.”
“My family is not safe here.”
“My identity is a problem.”

Pediatric psychologists have found that discriminatory rhetoric correlates with:

anxiety
sleep disturbances
school withdrawal
depression
identity conflict
increased bullying in schools

2. U.S.-born children of immigrants experience “secondary trauma”

These children may be citizens — but they see their parents, cousins, and community members insulted, detained, or threatened.

Secondary trauma symptoms include:

hypervigilance (fear when they hear sirens or see uniforms)
sudden academic decline
regression (bed-wetting, clinginess)
distrust of government institutions

3. Children from targeted diasporas suffer peer-based harm

After major political speeches containing xenophobic language:

playground slurs rise
racial teasing spikes
immigrant students report more “go back to your country” harassment

Schools cannot firewall children from national rhetoric. If leaders normalize hatred, children metabolize it.

4. Language shapes identity formation

Calling a child’s cultural homeland “garbage” or “disgusting” attacks the core foundation of their self-concept. Psychologists call this identity trauma — a wound that persists into adulthood.

This trauma is invisible on paper. It never appears in USCIS files. But it is real, it is measurable, and it changes lives.

The Global Playbook: How Political Leaders Use Xenophobia to Win Power — A Historical Pattern

If Trump’s rhetoric feels familiar, it is because it fits a century-long global political pattern. Around the world — across left-wing, right-wing, and authoritarian movements — leaders have used xenophobic messaging to:

consolidate power
divide electorates
justify security expansions
redirect economic frustration
neutralize opposition
manufacture moral crisis

Historical echoes include:

U.S. 1880s–1920s: Chinese Exclusion rhetoric, “unassimilable races,” Southern/Eastern European “degeneration” tropes.
Nazi Germany: Framing Jewish and Slavic populations as “vermin,” “disease,” “pollutants.”
1990s Balkans: Politicians using ethnic disgust metaphors to fuel civil violence.
Modern Europe: “Migrant invasion,” “cultural contamination,” “crime-ridden outsiders” used to drive far-right electoral gains.
Myanmar: Dehumanizing Rohingya Muslims as “animals” to justify ethnic cleansing.

The pattern is always the same:

Step 1: Define an out-group.
Step 2: Attach disgust language.
Step 3: Pathologize them (“disease,” “garbage,” “infestation”).
Step 4: Claim national danger (“security threat”).
Step 5: Introduce exclusion policies.
Step 6: Normalize harsher enforcement.

Trump’s 2025 remarks reproduce this cycle with alarming fidelity.

Why this matters today

When the United States — historically a refuge for immigrants fleeing violence — adopts rhetoric used in pre-genocidal political movements, the global signal is powerful:

Human rights become negotiable
Minorities become targets
Extremist groups feel validated
Bureaucracies feel permission to discriminate

And the communities affected — Somali, Haitian, African diasporas, Muslim immigrants, and mixed-status families — experience immediate increases in:

hate crimes
public harassment
discriminatory treatment
mental health distress
economic insecurity

History does not repeat itself automatically. But it rhymes — loudly — when politician after politician rediscovers the utility of xenophobia.

Mental Health Fallout: How Xenophobic Rhetoric Damages Adults, Families, and Immigrant Communities

Political speech does not stay in Washington. It ripples into living rooms, workplaces, hospitals, and mosques.

Immigrant adults experience:

chronic stress
anxiety about deportation or status loss
increased workplace discrimination
fear of engaging with government services
social withdrawal
trauma reactivation (especially refugees)

Mixed-status families experience:

marital strain
community isolation
identity conflicts
parenting difficulties (protecting children from hate)

Studies in immigrant mental health show:

Hate speech increases allostatic load — the physiological wear and tear caused by chronic threat.
Immigrants exposed to xenophobic political rhetoric show higher rates of hypertension, PTSD symptoms, and clinical depression.
Fear of surveillance reduces participation in schooling, healthcare, and reporting crimes.

These harms rarely appear in immigration data — but they shape outcomes in every immigrant household.

Contagion Effect: How Elite Rhetoric Spreads Hate at Street Level

When a political leader uses dehumanizing language, the social threshold for hate shifts.

Sociologists describe this as norm elasticity — what was once unacceptable becomes permissible.

After xenophobic political speeches:

hate crimes spike
ethnic harassment in public increases
online abuse accelerates
vigilante incidents appear in places where they never did
businesses, landlords, and service providers engage in subtle discriminatory practices

Once xenophobic rhetoric enters mainstream political dialogue, extremists feel emboldened — and moderates feel desensitized.

The danger isn’t that the public adopts every hateful phrase — it’s that hateful behavior becomes less shocking.

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For journalists and researchers: feel free to quote this page and link to the resources above.

For immigrants or families affected by PM-602-0192, travel restrictions, or nationality-based vetting, you can schedule a consultation through
Book a Consultation.

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Trump’s New Anti-Immigrant Rally Cry: Calling Nations “Disgusting, Dirty, Filthy” — and Owning the Slur He Once Denied

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