National Post (National Edition)
Trump on Day Three
WASHINGTON • Donald Trump signed an executive order Wednesday to immediately begin the construction of a wall along the border with Mexico to curb illegal immigration.
The president was also considering slashing the number of refugees able to shelter in the United States and suspending visas for citizens from war-torn Syria and other countries in the Middle East and Africa.
Justifying his sweeping crackdowns, Trump, who has long held that immigration is a threat to national security, said that “when it comes to public safety, there is no place for politics.”
In another busy day for the president, Trump also said he was considering reinstating waterboarding and other methods widely considered torture for use in interrogations, and announced a “major investigation” into alleged voter fraud during the 2016 election.
Meanwhile, amid expectations of stronger worldwide growth as Trump tries to shift the U.S. economy into higher gear, there was a global rally in stocks and the Dow Jones Industrial Average finally blew past the mythical 20,000 mark.
In announcing the construction of the border wall, Trump, who said during his election campaign that immigrants from Mexico were “rapists” and “drug dealers,” promised his policies would “save thousands of lives, millions of jobs and billions of dollars.”
“A nation without borders is not a nation,” said Trump, speaking from the Department of Homeland Security. “From today, the United States gets back control of its borders.”
The president also signed a directive to crack down on “sanctuary cities” where police are not required to seek out illegal immigrants.
America is home to 11 million undocumented immigrants, according to recent studies. Many are contributors to the economy, forming a significant part of the American labour market.
The White House plans include stripping cities sheltering undocumented immigrants of government funding and take steps to force countries of origin to accept the return of illegal immigrants who commit criminal acts.
“We are going to get the bad ones out,” Trump said.
But the administration may face legal challenges, given that some federal courts have found illegal immigrants cannot be denied bail based only on a request from immigration authorities.
Trump is expected to limit the number of refugees admitted to the U.S. to 50,000 a year, down from 100,000, and to impose a temporary ban on most refugees. The new administration is also considering denying visits to the U.S. by people from several Muslim-majority countries, including Syria, Sudan, Somalia, Iraq, Iran, Libya and Yemen.
James Carafano, who led the homeland security portfolio in Trump’s presidential transition team, said that the restrictions were designed to “stem the flow” of foreign jihadists to the U.S.
Trump also vowed during his election campaign to bring back waterboarding, “and a hell of a lot worse,” but later said he had taken to heart statements by James Mattis, his new Pentagon chief and a retired Marine Corps general, that torture did not work and was not in America’s interest.
He appeared to change his mind Wednesday, telling ABC News that the U.S. had to “fight fire with fire” as terrorist groups beheaded their prisoners in the Middle East. “We have that and we’re not allowed to do anything. We’re not playing on an even field,” he said.
Trump insisted that torture was effective for extracting information but said he would confer with Mattis and Mike Pompeo, the CIA director, about what methods could legally be used.
“If they don’t want to do it that’s fine,” he said of waterboarding, adding “if they want to do it” he would work toward implementing it.
Meanwhile, U.S. media reported that Trump was considering reopening CIA “black sites” outside the U.S. for detention of terrorism suspects, though it later emerged that the reports were based on a policy proposal that had not been signed off by Trump.
The president also ordered a “major investigation” into alleged voter fraud.
The investigation, he said, would look at those registered to vote in more than one state, “those who are illegal and … even those registered to vote who are dead (and many for a long time).
“Depending on results, we will strengthen up voting procedures!” he wrote on Twitter. The president has bristled at references to losing the popular vote to Democrat Hillary Clinton and said he would have won it if not for fraud.
He repeated these claims this week, telling congressional leaders three to five million illegal immigrants had voted in the election.
Claims of widespread voter fraud have been debunked and election officials from both parties in all 50 states have denied such fraud took place. Nancy Pelosi, the top House Democrat, said the claims exposed Trump’s insecurities and that she felt “very sad” and “sorry” for him.
While few prominent Republicans have backed Trump’s claim that millions of fraudulent votes were cast in 2016, some welcomed the investigation. Republicans have long sought stronger voter-identification laws, and other more restrictive voting procedures. Democrats have countered that some 10 per cent of the U.S. voting population, made up predominantly of low-income and Democratic-leaning voters, lack government ID and would lose access to the polls.
Meanwhile, solid earnings and optimism over Trump’s pro-growth initiatives revitalized a postelection stock rally. “With a swift move toward signing executive orders, coupled with underlying positive economic data, clarity has begun to hit the headlines, and all the U.S. indexes are celebrating,” Quincy Krosby at Prudential Financial Inc. said. “Clarity is the markets’ oxygen.”