'Why are we having all these people from sh*thole countries come here?' Trump said, according to two people who were briefed on the meeting and then leaked the comment to The Washington Post.
Trump was reportedly speaking about Haitians and citizens of various African nations.
'Why do we need more Haitians? Take them out,' he told people in the meeting, according to CNN.
The comments have caused outrage around the world, with the United Nations calling President Trump 'racist'.
U.N. human rights spokesman Rupert Colville said 'racist' was the only word that could be used to describe Trump's comments.
Comment: Really? Couldn't 'honest' be another word? 'Frank'? Or what about 'what everyone else is thinking but won't say'?
He added: 'You cannot dismiss entire countries and continents as 's***holes', whose entire populations, who are not white, are therefore not welcome.'
Trump also said that instead of accepting Africans and Haitians, the U.S. should seek to assimilate people from countries like Norway, whose prime minister he met with a day earlier.
Unlike Haiti and all the nations of Africa, Norway is both a NATO member and a stalwart U.S. ally.
CNN reported that the outburst came at the private Oval Office meeting as Democratic senator Dick Durbin outlined a bipartisan immigration deal put together by six senators which they took to Trump for backing.
Dick Durbin, the Democratic senator who is minority whip, was outlining his proposal in which the visa lottery system, of which Trump has been a fierce critic, would be ended in return for 'temporary protected status', known as TPS, resuming for El Salvador and Haiti.
Trump has moved to end it for immigrants from those countries but as Durbin went through a list of countries which would gain TPS under the deal, he reached Haiti and 'Trump asked why the US wants more people from Haiti and African countries', CNN reported.
Haiti's government came out late Thursday and said they 'vehemently condemn' Trump's comments in relation to their country.
The country's ambassador to the US told NBC that Trump's remarks were 'based on stereotypes' and the president was either 'misinformed' or 'miseducated.'
Comment: Uhm, but Haiti is a sh*thole. And most Haitians would probably agree with that statement, which is why they want to go to the USA.
The White House issued a needle-threading statement on immigration policy Thursday afternoon, while not denying the story's accuracy.
'Certain Washington politicians choose to fight for foreign countries, but President Trump will always fight for the American people,' deputy press secretary Raj Shah said in the statement. 'The President will only accept an immigration deal that adequately addresses the visa lottery system and chain migration - two programs that hurt our economy and allow terrorists into our country.'
'Like other nations that have merit-based immigration, President Trump is fighting for permanent solutions that make our country stronger by welcoming those who can contribute to our society, grow our economy and assimilate into our great nation,' Shah added.
'He will always reject temporary, weak and dangerous stopgap measures that threaten the lives of hardworking Americans, and undercut immigrants who seek a better life in the United States through a legal pathway.'
Policy squabbles notwithstanding, Trump's comments shocked senators from both major parties, according to the Post.
Democrat Dick Durbin of Illinois was in the Oval Office to argue that the Trump administration should scale back a proposal to eliminate a diversity visa lottery, which seeks to import people from places that would otherwise be 'underrepresented' among immigrants in the U.S.
Trump's comment about 's***hole countries' comes at a time when his White House is ending protections for people who sought shelter following natural disasters years, or sometimes decades, ago.
There are approximately 436,900 people with such 'Temporary Protected Status' living in the U.S. from 10 countries - South Sudan, Sudan, Somalia, Honduras, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Syria, Haiti, Nepal and Yemen.
Haitians and Nicaraguans have already been told their protection is ending.
The Trump administration said this week that it was also removing the protection for Salvadoran nationals who have been allowed to reside in the U.S. since a pair of earthquakes struck their country in 2001.
The Haitians were fleeing an equally devastating 2010 earthquake.
If you look at Haiti, Sudan, and the other African nations he was likely pointing to, their citizens come to the U.S. because we're the ones fucking up their home.