Trump orders stepped up ‘ extreme vetting’
> Media: New York truck attack suspect left note pledging allegiance to IS
WASHINGTON: Donald Trump has responded to a terrorist attack in New York by vowing to toughen restrictions on immigration.
“I have just ordered Homeland Security to step up our already Extreme Vetting Programme. Being politically correct is fine, but not for this!” the US president tweeted.
Throughout his rise to the presidency, Trump has invoked the threat of terrorist attacks as a rationale for tightening immigration policies, including halting refugee admissions and banning immigrants from certain Muslim-majority countries.
Trump’s tweets suggest that the president will double down on that push in response to Tuesday’s attacks.
Earlier in the day, he wrote that the US “must not” allow Islamic State (IS) militants to “return, or enter” the country after being defeated overseas.
As a coalition of Iraqi troops, Kurdish forces and others have pushed IS fighters from vast swathes of territory they seized across the Middle East, terrorism experts have cautioned that loyalists will turn to inflicting violence on Western cities.
Officials deemed the assault in New York, which left eight dead, an act of terrorism.
News outlets reported that authorities found a note pledging fealty to IS in or near the truck assailant Sayfullo Saipov used to mow down bystanders.
Reports said Saipov, from Uzbekistan, had come to America in 2010. It was not yet clear what his immigration status was.
“Uzbekistan is ready to use all forces and resources to help in the investigation of this act of terror,” Uzbekistan president Shavkat Mirziyoyev said yesterday.
Meanwhile, European allies and Mexico’s president condemned the attack.
“Together we will defeat the evil of terrorism,” British Prime Minister Theresa May said.
French President Emmanuel Macron tweeted: “Our fight for freedom unites us more than ever.”
Heavily-armed police fanned out across the city of 8.5 million, home to Wall Street, Broadway and one of the biggest tourist draws in the US.
Security was tight at airports, bridges, tunnels and mass transit systems, with bag searches at Manhattan’s Grand Central transit hub and police stationed along a subway platform in Brooklyn.
A planned Halloween parade went ahead as scheduled, albeit under tight security and a large police presence, as State Governor Andrew Cuomo ordered the new World Trade Centre to be lit red, white and blue “in honour of freedom and democracy”. – The Independent/AFP