Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks in Youngstown, Ohio, Monday, Aug. 15, 2016. How will it work?
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Under Trump’s plan, immigrants would also be subjected to tests to show a commitment to US values, including religious freedom and tolerance.
“To put these new procedures in place, we will have to temporarily suspend immigration from some of the most unsafe and volatile regions of the world that have a history of exporting terrorism”, he said.
While arguing that the Iraq War was a mistake, Trump briefly digressed to say US should have “kept the oil” belonging to Iraq after coalition troops invaded the country. “We cannot always choose our friends but we can never fail to recognise our enemies”, he said.
The government would use questionnaires, social media, and interviews with friends and relatives to determine if people seeking to immigrate or get visas supported American values like tolerance and pluralism. It is unclear how the test responses would be assessed. Instead, Trump repeated the untruths that he opposed both the Iraq War and intervention in Libya from the beginning, reversed his position on USA involvement with North Atlantic Treaty Organisation and called for – rather than his previously proposed “complete shutdown” of Muslims entering the country – new screening procedures for immigrants seeking entry to the United States.
The proposal drew condemnation from both Democrats and Republicans, including from his running mate Indiana Governor Mike Pence.
Trump’s controversial proposal to ban Muslims from the U.S. has been through several iterations, with Monday’s speech just the latest to provide a venue for further clarity. Trump spent more of his speech defining what he said was a new ideological test for those entering the USA, comparing his plan to Cold War-era screening.
Trump condemned the 2003 USA invasion of Iraq and what he called Obama’s “reckless” withdrawal, which gave “new life” to terrorists there. He said before Obama and Clinton, who was Obama’s first secretary of state, were in power, Libya was stable, Syria was under control, Egypt was an American ally, Iraq was seeing a reduction in violence, Iran was being choked by economic sanctions, and ISIS was close to being extinguished. “Anyone who can not name our enemy, is not fit to lead this country”, Trump said. What countries would be affected? “We should only admit into this country those who share our values and respect our people”, he said, promising to stop processing visas from “regions where adequate screening can not take place”.
“Trump is already making our country less safe”.
Trump also advocated suspension of immigration from the countries exporting terrorism although he avoided mentioning the term “Muslim-majority nations” the way he had done in the past. The Republican nominee, reeling from self-inflicted wounds that played into his rival Hillary Clinton’s charge that he lacks the temperament to be commander in chief, promised an all-encompassing struggle with Islamic terror modeled on the Cold War. But the candidate, clearly sticking to a carefully prepared script as he spoke a large and vocal crowd in Youngstown, Ohio Monday, did not stop there.
For months, Trump has stated his plan to close off US borders to individuals he deems as potential terrorists.
While Trump had not been expected to list on Monday which countries’ citizens would be banned from the United States, the senior campaign official offered Syria and Libya as examples of two countries that would be affected by the ban. He did not identify those regions, saying instead that he would ask the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security to do so once he is elected.
In this, Trump said he plans to work with Jordan, Egypt, NATO and Russian Federation, which has a “big, big problem with ISIS”. “Clearly, new screening procedures are needed”, he said.
A Trump Administration, he said, will also work very closely with North Atlantic Treaty Organisation on this new mission. North Atlantic Treaty Organisation invoked Article 5, its collective self-defense mechanism, for the first time in its history to offer support to the United States after the September 11, 2001, attacks.
In 2002, the U.S. created “Special Registration”, a programme requiring Arab and Muslim men to register with authorities with the aim of uncovering terror links.
The Times reports Manafort’s name appeared in a hand-written ledger showing $12.7 million in cash was earmarked for him.
“A Trump Administration will establish a clear principle that will govern all decisions pertaining to immigration. And while I’m at it, we should give a hand to our great police officers and law enforcement officials”, he said.
“If I become president, the era of nation-building will be brought to a very swift and decisive end”, Trump said.
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Many national security experts were also not impressed.
