Trump Says Immigrants Who Come to the U.S. 'Make Our Hell's Angels Look Like the Sweetest People on Earth'
- - Trump Says Immigrants Who Come to the U.S. 'Make Our Hell's Angels Look Like the Sweetest People on Earth'
Bailey RichardsJanuary 21, 2026 at 9:17 AM
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President Donald Trump attends a White House press briefing on Jan. 20, 2026 -
President Donald Trump said that immigrants make the Hell’s Angels biker club look like “the sweetest people on Earth" during a Jan. 20 press briefing
Trump also praised the Hell’s Angels, which the DOJ has previously called a "criminal enterprise," saying the organization "voted for" and "protected me"
The comments come amid the Trump administration's controversial immigration crackdown
President Donald Trump compared immigrants entering the country "illegally" to a motorcycle organization long linked to illegal activities. Immediately after, he praised the biker club.
While discussing immigration during a press briefing on Tuesday, Jan. 20, the president went on a tangent comparing “people that came in [to the United States] illegally” to Hell’s Angels, a biker club that the Department of Justice described in 2009 as “a criminal enterprise involved in multiple criminal activities.”
Among other remarks, Trump, 79, claimed that immigrants of the U.S. make the motorcycle club — which the DOJ has linked to murder and the distribution of several drugs, among other crimes — look like “the sweetest people on Earth.”
"People that came in illegally … many cases, they're criminals, in many, many cases. Remember when they used to say that the people that come into our country as immigrants are very nice people, they're wonderful people, they don't commit crime? No,” he told reporters. “They make our criminals look like babies.”
“They make our Hell’s Angels look like the sweetest people on Earth,” the president continued, referring to the biker club, which is also infamously associated with an assassination plot to kill Mick Jagger.
Trump then praised the long-standing motorcycle club, which he claimed has been supportive of his political endeavors.
“The Hell’s Angels are now considered a nice, high-quality person. I like the Hell’s Angels,” Trump said. “They voted for me. They protected me, actually, believe it or not. But they make our criminals look like babies.”
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President Donald Trump at a White House press briefing on Jan. 20, 2026
Elsewhere in the press briefing — which he attended in honor of the one-year anniversary of his inauguration — Trump offered less harsh remarks about U.S. immigrants.
After stating that “the people we’re getting out” — seemingly referring to immigrants who his administration has been targeting — are individuals from prisons in other countries, the president said that he has sympathy for the “good people” who have entered the country "illegally."
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“We have a lot of heart for people [who] came in illegally, but they're good people and they're working now on farms and they're working in luncheonettes and hotels we're not looking to … we’re looking to get the criminals out right now. The criminals,” Trump said. “I think it’s very important.”
He continued, “Every once in a while you see a story, we take somebody, he should be out because they came in illegally. So in theory, they should be but we’re focused on the murderers, the drug dealers, the mentally insane — we have a lot of mentally insane killers. I mean, you can’t even talk to ‘em.”
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President Donald Trump speaks to reporters on Jan. 20, 2026
The actions of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) have garnered renewed attention in 2026, nearly a year after Trump returned to office and launched his administration’s controversial mass deportation effort.
Nearly 75,000 people arrested by ICE during Trump's first nine months in office had no criminal record, according to data obtained by the University of California, Berkeley’s Deportation Data Project.
That data, compiled by an internal ICE office and made public in a lawsuit filed against the agency, showed that almost one-third of those arrested in that timeframe had no criminal record. For those who had been convicted in the past, the data doesn't distinguish between minor offenses and violent crimes.
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Source: “AOL Entertainment”