VA GOP Member Quits, Rips Party For Anti-Immigrant Stance: Report

A member of the board of directors of the Republican Party of Northern Virginia has resigned, renouncing the party for its anti-immigrant stance and calling President Trump's vulgar description of African countries and Haiti as the "last straw," according to a report.

WTOP reports that Kyle McDaniel, who joined the Virginia Republican party in 2008 and was elected to the state party's board of directors in 2016, sent a resignation letter to GOP Chairman John Whitbeck and Chair of the 11th District Committee Paul Prados.

“I held my tongue for too long; hoping things would improve," he wrote in the letter, according to WTOP. "I was wrong. I can no longer stomach those who support nativism, or their apologists and enablers. After a decade of work in the Republican Party in Northern Virginia, it is time for me to step away."

He added that he was concerned that antagonism against immigrants is getting worse, and that the focus of the Republican Party had shifted from merely being concerned about illegal immigration to demonizing all immigrants. McDaniel, who has been to Haiti, is reportedly considering adopting a Haitian child.

He said he hopes that the GOP will recover from the current situation and get back to its roots.

“The party has lost its way from the days when Ronald Reagan reaffirmed the United States as a shining city on the hill,” McDaniel wrote. “That is our country’s heritage, not a walled-off nation turning a blind eye to, and mocking, the human suffering on our door step.”

Trump's alleged derogatory comments referring to Haiti and African nations as "s---hole countries" have caused a firestorm of criticism worldwide. It led to an uncomfortable situation for Vice President Mike Pence this past weekend when he attended a diverse church in Maryland in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.

As Pence and his wife, Karen, sat in the front pew of Metropolitan Baptist Church in Largo, he got an earful from the church's pastor, Dr. Maurice Watson. "It is alleged that a hurtful, dehumanizing, visceral, guttural, ugly adjective that I cannot repeat in church, was allegedly used to characterize some of the nations of Africa," Watson said.

While Watson never mentioned Trump by name, it was clear that he was referring to the president's reported comments at a closed-door meeting with senators in which he complained about people from "s---hole countries."

"A statement was made that we ought to welcome people from Norway more than we should welcome people from Haiti," Watson said in his sermon, mere feet away from the vice president. "I stand here today as your pastor to vehemently denounce and reject such characterizations. Whoever said it is wrong, and they ought to be held accountable. You are owed an apology, but you probably won't get one."

Watson got a big ovation from the diverse congregation, which includes people of both African and Haitian descent.

Image via White House