Thread: Trump seizes on N.Y. attack to push immigration and vetting policies

Trump seizes on N.Y. attack to push immigration and vetting policies

By David Nakamura and Ed O'Keefe
November 1 at 8:11 PM

President Trump moved quickly Wednesday to gain *political advantage in the wake of the New York terrorist attack, casting blame on Democrats for lax immigration laws and calling the criminal justice system’s handling of suspects “a joke.”

A day after a man, identified by authorities as an Uzbek immigrant, killed eight people on a Manhattan bike path in an act authorities said was inspired by the Islamic State, Trump seized on the deadly crime to renew his calls for a series of hard-line policies.

The president said he would move to eliminate a popular “diversity lottery” for foreigners seeking U.S. visas and direct the State Department to ramp up “extreme vetting” of immigrants. He also suggested he would consider sending the suspect, Sayfullo Saipov, a legal permanent resident of the United States, to the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

“We have to get much tougher,” Trump said.

“We have to get much smarter. And we have to get much less politically correct. We’re so politically correct that we’re afraid to do anything.”

Trump campaigned on vows to get tougher on terrorism and immigration, but his agenda has been largely stalled in Congress and in the federal courts, where judges have blocked several attempts by the administration to enact a sweeping travel ban on immigrants from a handful of countries, although Uzbekistan is not one of them.

It was not clear how much action Trump could take on his own to make good on his renewed pledges.

But his response — including blaming Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) for helping create the visa program that allowed Saipov to enter the country — stood in sharp contrast to the White House’s reaction to the mass shooting in Las Vegas last month that killed 59 people at a country music concert.

After that attack by a Nevada man who killed himself, Trump denounced the shooter’s act as “pure evil,” but White House aides and Republican allies rejected calls by Democrats for a renewed debate over gun-control laws, saying it was not appropriate to politicize the tragedy.

On Wednesday, however, Trump said the United States needs a system of “punishment that’s far quicker and far greater than the punishment these animals are getting right now. They’ll go through court for years. . . . We need quick justice, and we need strong justice.”

Trump also said the criminal justice system is “a laughingstock” in how suspects are prosecuted and added that keeping the country safe will require “unflinching devotion to our law enforcement, homeland security and intelligence professionals.”

The comments are remarkable given the Justice Department’s heavy focus on prosecuting terrorism cases.

Just two weeks ago, a federal jury convicted a New Jersey man born in Afghanistan for detonating explosives in the Chelsea neighborhood of New York last year.

Referring to Saipov as an “animal,” Trump asserted that the 29-year-old was responsible for the entry of 23 immigrants, many of them family members. The president said such “chain migration” endangers national security, and he called for the elimination of the State Department’s “diversity visa lottery,” through which authorities have said Saipov came to the United States in 2010.

It was not clear what evidence the president had for the claim; legal permanent residents are permitted to sponsor only their spouse and their children under 21 years of age for green cards, according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

The lottery program issues up to 50,000 visas per year to people from dozens of countries, granting them legal permanent residency. The aim is to mix up the nation’s melting pot, although the visas are a tiny fraction of the roughly 1 million green cards issued annually.

“It’s not good. It hasn’t been good. We’ve been against it,” Trump said.

He has expressed support for an immigration bill from Republican Sens. Tom Cotton (Ark.) and David Perdue (Ga.) that would slash legal immigration levels by half over a decade, including eliminating the diversity lottery. Democrats and many Republicans have opposed the bill.

“This man that came in, or whatever you want to call him, brought in with him other people, and he was the primary point of contact for — and this is preliminarily — 23 people that came in or potentially came in with him,” Trump said. “That’s not acceptable.”

Asked whether Saipov’s family members represent a security threat, Trump replied: “They certainly could. He did. They certainly could represent a threat.”

In 1990, Schumer, then a House member, introduced the bill that helped create the diversity visa program, which passed Congress with a bipartisan majority and was signed into law by President George H.W. Bush, a Republican.

In 2013, however, Schumer was part of a bipartisan group of senators that sought to end the program as part of a comprehensive immigration reform package that later died in the Republican-controlled House.

Schumer denounced Trump’s remarks and pointed to President George W. Bush’s response to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, in which he attempted to rally the nation to find a common approach to confront the threat.

“All President Trump does is take advantage — horrible advantage — of a tragedy and try to politicize and divide,” Schumer said.

“This is a tragedy. It’s less than a day after it occurred, and he can’t refrain from his nasty, divisive habits.”

At the White House, press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders rejected the notion that Trump had politicized the attack, saying that the president has consistently spoken about the need for tougher immigration laws.

[Here’s what you need to know about the Diversity Visa Lottery Program]

“This is something that, frankly, the president has been talking about for a long time,” Sanders said.

“This isn’t a new policy. This isn’t a new position. This isn’t a new conversation.”

The clash once again pitted the two New Yorkers against each other over an attack that played out miles from where they grew up.

It also raised questions about whether the fallout could further complicate the already tenuous path for Congress to find a compromise on legislation to legalize hundreds of thousands of younger undocumented immigrants, known as “dreamers.” They were thrust into limbo in September after Trump announced the termination of a deferred deportation program, created by President Barack Obama, that allowed them to live and work in the United States.

“I have always believed in immigration as good for America — so do the vast majority of Americans. I stand by that today,” Schumer said.

“It’s a good thing for America. Whether President Trump believes that or not, we don’t know, because some days he’s very anti-immigrant and then he calls [House Minority] Leader [Nancy] Pelosi and I to the White House and says, ‘Let’s help the dreamers.’ ”

Other New York Democrats also took umbrage at Trump’s response to the attacks.

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said the president’s tweets against Schumer and the immigration system were intended to “point fingers and politicize the situation.”

Such tactics “play into the hands of the terrorists to the extent you disrupt and divide and frighten people in this society,” Cuomo said.

Sanders said Trump spoke on the phone with Cuomo and New York Mayor Bill de Blasio (D).

A summary of the call from de Blasio’s office said the president praised the efforts of the first responders and offered federal assistance in the investigation, while the mayor thanked Trump for the help from homeland security officials.

The two did not have much else to talk about, however. The call, the mayor’s office said, lasted approximately five minutes.

Philip Rucker and Sean Sullivan contributed to this report.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/polit...=.ad7b8af7c43f

I'm so glad the President jumped on this visa lottery and the chain migration. The fact that a terrorist was let in through this program coupled with the alarming information that because he got in, he brought 23 others with him through chain migration is a huge wake up call for Americans who still don't get the dangerous, costly and damaging elements of this massive excess unwanted and unneeded purposeless immigration by the federal government.

It all has to end. All illegals including former DACAs must be deported and new legal immigration levels drastically reduced.

It's time for action, we've had enough talk already. NO more DACA "fix" talk. NO more "amnesty" talk. Time for enforcement of the laws, time to pass the Raise Act, time to increase ICE agents by at least 15,000, time to secure the borders, time to solve this problem and end illegal immigration and excess legal immigration into the US once and for all. The time is now.

Schumer's "little program" of allowing 50,000 in this lottery is a LIE.

It adds up to ONE MILLION a year...EVERY YEAR! Then add in their 8 kids they will have on our soil at OUR expense!

With all the continual admittances and births it will explode to 8 MILLION a year.

End this damn program NOW. Revoke their Visa's and get them out of here.

We have enough living in poverty and ghettos now on welfare...we do not need more!

The problem is that Trump wants to replace our current immigration system with his pro business experimental merit-based system when that is not what America needs. America needs to shut the front and back doors and cancel chain migration and cancel the Diversity Visa Program to help reduce all immigration!

“All President Trump does is take advantage — horrible advantage — of a tragedy and try to politicize and divide,” Schumer said.

“This is a tragedy. It’s less than a day after it occurred, and he can’t refrain from his nasty, divisive habits.”

Yeah, this is a tragedy that could and should have been prevented!!! Schumer is an idiot and a jerk. If we as a nation can't look at events like this and see that we made a huge mistake in allowing people like this into our country, we are as idiotic as Schumer!

Originally Posted by ALIPAC

The problem is that Trump wants to replace our current immigration system with his pro business experimental merit-based system when that is not what America needs. America needs to shut the front and back doors and cancel chain migration and cancel the Diversity Visa Program to help reduce all immigration!

I agree...we do NOT want Merit based immigration...or ANY immigration.

We have our own "BEST AND BRIGHTEST" to put on a path to success.

If these people are such an asset...why would we take them from their countries? They need to contribute to the success of their own country...not come here!

Go build America on YOUR soil. They need to contribute to their own society and to the rest of the World.

NO MORE PEOPLE FOR AT LEAST 10 YEARS...PUT THEM ON A PATH TO SUCCESS IN THEIR COUNTRY...NOT ABANDON IT TO MORE POVERTY, NO EDUCATION AND OVER POPULATION!

Our city has gone from being one of the most livable in the country to now where it takes twice as long to get anywhere as it used to. There are both traffic jams and longer qeues to get through traffic signals. I always used to be on time; now I have to allow about 75 percent longer to get any significant distance. Our interstate traffic is a total nightmare; I wonder how many people have had serious crises while tied up in the traffic jams. Both states are superliberal, and tolerant of the swelling illegal alien population. And I know a lot of those have under the table businesses and simply cross state lines to get the money they are making

We, the people have got to do something soon. Appealing to our representatives has not and will not work. The special interests groups are so entrenched in Washington that it will take something drastic on our parts to pry them loose. We just keep going around the same mountain. Until we get rid of the people who really pull the strings in Washington we are wasting our time trying to fight. I am totally discouraged.

Originally Posted by gabelle39

We, the people have got to do something soon. Appealing to our representatives has not and will not work. The special interests groups are so entrenched in Washington that it will take something drastic on our parts to pry them loose. We just keep going around the same mountain. Until we get rid of the people who really pull the strings in Washington we are wasting our time trying to fight. I am totally discouraged.

We need to make sure the President knows we no longer support legal immigration, and that we want a 10 to 20 Year Moratorium on All Immigration. It seems to me that this position needs to be made official. Trump wants to reduce legal immigration and believes that by changing the numbers and means that he can accomplish this without being "anti-immigrant". The RAISE ACT does this and Trump was very instrumental and involved in changes to that bill to accomplish as much of this as possible but while it's a start, we actually need to drop these numbers even further on green cards especially. We also need to remove the exemption of charities and universities from all H1B visa caps. There is no reason at all for these 501 C 3 and education organizations to be exempt from the visa cap. One at all.

Also, any illegal alien who is issued a green card under the current system needs to be counted towards the total green card cap.