Right-wing commentator Megyn Kelly is facing backlash over a vulgar rant against Haitian immigrants after the Supreme Court ruled that Donald Trump’s administration can take away humanitarian protections for tens of thousands of people.
“Go home! Get out! We know our country is better than yours,” Kelly said on her podcast The Megyn Kelly Show on Thursday after the high court’s ruling.
“That’s because we filled it with our work ethic and our culture and our values!” she said. “You being here only dilutes it for us, those who built it and live it. And half of you people — more than half of you — won’t assimilate. We don’t want you!”
Kelly was reacting to a 6-3 decision from the Supreme Court’s conservative majority that allows the Department of Homeland Security to end Temporary Protected Status for Haiti and Syria, a decision that could force roughly 350,000 Haitians and thousands more Syrians to return to the countries they fled.
“Profoundly racist. Morally reprehensible,” Professor Eddie S. Glaude Jr. of Princeton University’s African American Studies Department wrote on X in reaction to Kelly’s claims that Haitian immigrants lack work ethic and values.
Congress created the TPS program in 1990 to grant temporary legal status to people fleeing war, natural disasters and “extraordinary and temporary” conditions in their home countries. Haiti was first designated for TPS after a 2010 earthquake killed more than 200,000 people and devastated the country.
Armed group violence has forced 1.4 million people in Haiti to flee their homes, and 5.7 million Haitians are affected by severe food insecurity every day, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
Haitian immigrants under TPS contribute nearly $6 billion to the U.S. economy and more than $1.5 billion in taxes every year, according to a January factsheet by advocacy groups FWD.us, UndocuBlack Network and Haitian Bridge Alliance.
“We don’t care if you’re offended. Get out! Go home! Go back to f***ing Haiti!” Kelly said on her podcast.
“Sorry, I’m thinking about our friends in Ohio who’ve been dealing with these TPS Haitians for years now,” she said.
“This is the whole cats and dogs thing, like, they don’t want to live like Americans live,” she added. “And this was supposed to be a temporary — It was supposed to be temporary help, and it’s turned into another backdoor way of allowing someone permanent residency here.”
Kelly was referencing baseless claims amplified by Trump during his 2024 campaign, when he accused Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, of “eating the pets.”
Viles Dorsainvil, a Haitian immigrant in Ohio who lives in the U.S. under TPS, told reporters Thursday that the Supreme Court seemed to accept “all the conspiracy theories from the president against minority groups” with its decision.
Democratic Rep. Yassamin Ansari of Arizona called Kelly’s claims about Haitian immigrants “just vile.”
“Imagine having every privilege and opportunity in the world and choosing to dedicate your platform to spreading hatred about vulnerable people,” the congresswoman wrote on X. “Hope you find whatever humanity you’re missing, Megyn.”
NewsNation’s Connell McShane, a former colleague of Kelly’s, called her an “a******.”
“I didn't want to even bother listening to this, but I did for some reason. Megyn, you're such an a******, and this is simply not true,” he wrote on X.
“The people I know and work with from Haiti are making this country better, not worse,” he said. “You, on the other hand…”
Ohio-based writer Pedro L. Gonzalez accused Kelly of making crude comments for money and fame.
“She became a cartoon white nationalist because she figured going that direction would get her the most attention. There are a lot of soulless grifters in the podcasting space, but Megyn Kelly has got to be in the top five,” he wrote.
Katie Miller — the wife of White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, who is the architect of Trump’s most extreme immigration policies — also celebrated the Supreme Court ruling on TPS with false claims against Haitian immigrants.
“Great news for the dogs and cats of Springfield,” she wrote on X Thursday.
Ahilan Arulanantham, co-director of the Miñana Family Center for Immigration Law and Policy at the UCLA School of Law, who argued the TPS case before the Supreme Court, lambasted the ruling.
“The decision hands to the administration, and to the far right-wing of the anti-immigrant movement, an important victory that they have been unable to obtain through Congress for a number of years,” Arulanantham said at a press briefing Thursday.
“The Supreme Court decision also finds it’s not even ‘likely’ that the president’s statements and Secretary Noem’s statements about Haitians were motivated by race discrimination,” the attorney said. “That conclusion is deeply troubling not just for immigration cases, but for the state of racial justice in this country more broadly.”
