Trump steps up ‘extreme vetting’
‘STOP THIS CRAZINESS’ Prez cites diversity visa lottery programme, which he said was used by New York attacker
WASHINGTON: Within hours of the Manhattan terror attack on Tuesday, President Donald Trump ordered the department of homeland security to “step up” the already extreme vetting of visitors to the US, saying, ominously, this wasn’t the time to be politically correct.
The day after, Trump, joined by allies on the extreme right, launched a blistering attack on the Democrats for supporting a visa programme Sayfullo Saipov, the 29-year-old attacker from Uzbekistan, is said to have used to enter the US in 2010. He was on a green card.
“I have just ordered Homeland Security to step up our already Extreme Vetting Program. Being politically correct is fine, but not for this!” Trump tweeted on Tuesday night. But he did not explain “step up” and there was no word from the department of homeland security.
On Wednesday morning, Trump turned on the visa programme and immigration. “The terrorist came into our country through what is called the ‘Diversity Visa Lottery Program’, a Chuck Schumer beauty,” he tweeted, referring to a state department programme that grants 50,000 visas through an annual lottery to people from countries with low rates of immigration to the US.
Schumer is a Democratic senator from New York who supported the programme in 1990, and it became part of a wider immigration package that passed with bipartisan support in Congress and was signed into law by a Republican president, George HW Bush, the same year.
“I guess it’s not too soon to politicise a tragedy,” Schumer, the minority leader in the Senate, hit back on Twitter.
He was joined by conservatives as well, such as leading commentator Erik Erickson, who tweeted, “Dear GOP, why not wait to politicise the attack by going straight to immigration tough talk? Were a gun involved, you’d ask the D’s (Democrats) to wait.”
Trump went on to argue for his proposed merit-based immigration system: “We are fighting hard for Merit Based immigration, no more Democrat Lottery Systems. We must get MUCH tougher (and smarter).”
Republicans have for long opposed the diversity programme.
It wasn’t clear if Trump’s order to “step up” the extreme vetting programme for visitors was related in any way to the diversity visa programme or his controversial travel ban on the entry of visitors from certain Muslim-majority countries or presaged further changes in the vetting process.