According to the AP, Trump is also expected “to call for an explicit declaration, as in the Cold War, that the country is locked in ideological conflict with radical Islam”.
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The U.S. already screens everyone who enters the country, said Doris Meissner, who heads the Migration Policy Institute’s U.S. immigration policy program.
“My administration will aggressively pursue joint and coalition military operations to crush and destroy ISIS”, Trump said during a foreign policy speech in Youngstown, Ohio. “The time is overdue to develop a new screening test”. He’s struggled to stay on message and has consistently overshadowed his policy rollouts, including an economic speech last week, with provocative statements, including his comments falsely declaring that Obama was the “founder” of the Islamic State.
Ahead of Trump’s address, Clinton and Vice President Joe Biden vigorously challenged the Republican nominee’s preparedness to be commander in chief. Biden vigorously vouched for Clinton’s readiness for the White House and called Trump’s foreign policy views “dangerous” and “un-American”. “The threat to their life has gone up a couple clicks”, he said.
Clinton knocked Trump for having previously said he prefers to keep his foreign policy proposals secret in order to catch enemies by surprise.
“The fact of the matter is we have very sophisticated vetting programs in place”, she said, noting that the country has invested billions in improving systems and information sharing since the 9/11 attacks.
While Trump has been harshly critical of Obama’s handling of the threat posed by the Islamic State, his own policies for defeating the group remain vague. But the GOP nominee did say officials would seek to weed out those who believe that Sharia law “should supplant American law”, those who do not believe in the U.S. Constitution and those “who support bigotry and hatred”.
Trump’s Democratic rival Hillary Clinton and top USA government officials have warned of the dangers of using that kind of language to describe the conflict, arguing that it plays into militants’ hands.
Speaking in swing state Ohio, Trump also said his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton lacks the “mental and physical stamina” to take on the Islamic State. To start, aides said, he would consider adding a review of social media accounts and conducting interviews with an applicant’s friends and family. Trump used both “immigrants” and “visitors” during his Monday speech, raising the prospect he could scrap an existing waiver program that allows people from friendly countries to visit the U.S.as tourists without a visa.
The campaign did not clarify how U.S. officials would verify responses to the questionnaires or how much manpower would be needed to complete such vetting. “To put these new procedures in place we will have to temporarily suspend immigration from some of the most risky and volatile regions of the world that have a history of exporting terrorism”, he said. Trump had promised to release his list of “terror countries” soon.
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While Trump has been criticized for failing to lay out detailed policies, aides say Monday’s speech will again focus on his broader vision. Additional speeches with more details are expected in coming weeks, they said.
