Donald Trump on Monday said he would impose an ideological “new screening test” for people who wish to immigrate to the US, which he described as a policy of “extreme vetting” needed to defeat radical Islamic terrorism.
Advertisement
“We should only admit into our country those who share our values and respect our people”, he said from Youngstown, Ohio. Only those we feel able to flourish in our country and to blend into the tolerant American society should receive a visa.
One point that Trump did not repeat was his assertion that Obama and the Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, were the “founders” of ISIS, a comment that drew wide criticism last week.
Trump also accused US President Barack Obama of drawing moral equivalency between Western nations and Muslim nations ever since he delivered a landmark speech to the Arab world in Cairo in 2009. Manafort denies receiving the cash. The US would have done better, he said, to leave a residual force in Iraq to safeguard its oil supplies, using the proceeds to care for the war wounded.
Second, it’s not even clear that “extreme vetting” would make a difference in defending the United States against terrorism, since so many acts have been perpetrated by people of all religions who were, oh yeah, born here.
If enacted, Trump’s policies would expand existing rules which require would-be immigrants to disavow links to terrorist groups, the Nazi Party of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
“Let’s look back at the Middle East at the very beginning of 2009 before the Obama-Clinton administration took over”. “We don’t want an immigration policy subject to the vagaries of political opinion”.
“We will defeat radical Islamic terrorism”. He called for parents, teachers and others to promote “American culture” and encouraged “assimilation”.
Biden went a step further to accuse Trump of being sympathetic to totalitarian dictators.
“The threat to their life has gone up a couple clicks”, he said.
Sticking largely to prepared remarks and reading from a teleprompter, something he rarely does, Trump also criticised Clinton’s record as secretary of state and said she lacked the judgment and character to lead the country.
Trump was vague about what he would do differently to decimate ISIS in its strongholds in Iraq and Syria. “All actions should be oriented around this goal, and any country which shares this goal will be our ally”. But they have been unable to reach an agreement on which militant groups could be targeted. A key part of Trump’s plan for immigration includes a full stop to nation building.
He wants to convene an worldwide anti-terrorism conference if elected, and vowed to work with “our greatest ally, Israel”, as well as King Abdullah of Jordan, Egypt’s Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and the government of Russian Federation. Because most of these students get the money for their educations from sources outside of the USA, they give a significant funding boost to the schools they choose – and the economy.
His most specific anti-IS proposals centred on keeping those seeking to carry out attacks in the West from entering the US.
“Donald Trump never actually wanted to be president of the United States”. Admission would be granted using the test, combing through social media, and interviews with family and friends to conclude whether applicants support American values, AP reported.
“We will have to temporarily suspend immigration from some of the most unsafe and volatile regions of the world”, Trump said about putting his new immigration policy in place.
Possibly his biggest round of applause from an invited audience at Youngstown State University in OH came when he declared that USA “nation building” in the Mideast and elsewhere would come to an end in a Trump administration.
“In the Cold War, we had an ideological screening test”.
Advertisement
The speech marked a departure from proposals he offered in the Republican primary campaign, when he outlined plans to ban all Muslims from entering the U.S. homeland. Following a massacre at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, in June, Trump introduced a new standard. This, after a series of terrorist attacks around the country by lone-wolf Islamic extremists.
