Trump move to screen Muslims
new york — Donald Trump’s new administration could push ahead rapidly on a registry for immigrants from Muslim countries and construction of a US-Mexico border wall without seeking immediate congressional approval, sources said.
Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, who helped write tough immigration laws in Arizona and elsewhere and is advising the president-elect, said in an interview that Trump’s policy advisers had already discussed drafting a proposal for his consideration to reinstate the registry for immigrants from Muslim countries.
Kobach, a key member of Trump’s transition team, said he had participated in regular conference calls with about a dozen Trump immigration advisers for the past two to three months. Trump, who scored an
Trump has pledged that once he takes office, he would remove immigrants with criminal records who are in the country illegally
upset victory last week over Hillary Clinton, made building a wall on the US-Mexico border a central issue of his campaign and has pledged to step up immigration enforcement against the country’s 11 million undocumented immigrants. He has also said he supports “extreme vetting” of Muslims entering the US as a national security measure.
Kobach said the immigration group had discussed drafting executive orders for the presidentelect’s review “so that Trump and the Department of Homeland Security hit the ground running”.
To implement Trump’s call for “extreme vetting” of some Muslim immigrants, Kobach said the immigration policy group could recommend the reinstatement of a national registry of immigrants and visitors who enter the United States on visas from countries where extremist organisations are active.
Kobach helped design the programme, known as the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System, while serving in president George W. Bush’s Department of Justice after the 9/11 attacks on the US by Al Qaeda militants. —
WASHINGTON/NEW YORK — President-elect Donald Trump closed in on naming two loyal Wall Street backers to key economic positions but jettisoned a national security expert from his inner circle as his transition cleared an initial paperwork snag on Tuesday.
Trump, a Republican outsider who won a surprise election victory last week, is considering campaign finance chair and Wall Street veteran Steve Mnuchin as his treasury secretary, and longtime backer and billionaire investor Wilbur Ross for commerce secretary, according to Trump ally and activist investor Carl Icahn.
But a well-known Republican moderate was pushed out of transition planning. Mike Rogers, a former US representative from Michigan who had been mentioned as a possible pick for CIA director, suddenly left the transition team.
Rogers had worked with New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, who on Friday was abruptly replaced as head of the team by Vice President-elect Mike Pence.
That overhaul temporarily put the brakes on transition talks with the White House. Pence needed to sign a memorandum of understanding, which the White House received on Tuesday evening.
The Trump team still needs to provide more paperwork before detailed agency-by-agency briefings can take place, a White House spokeswoman said. The team will need to provide a code of conduct and certify that its transition team members do not have conflicts of interest.
Additional changes may be in store. The Wall Street Journal, citing an unnamed transition team member, reported that Pence had ordered all lobbyists off the transition team.
Officials for Pence and the transition could not immediately be reached for comment.
Pence was slated to head to Washington on Wednesday, where he and his wife, Karen, will be hosted for lunch by Vice President Joe Biden and his wife, Jill, at their official residence, the Naval Observatory. Trump has fewer than 70 days until his Jan. 20 inauguration to settle on Cabinet members and other senior appointees. He will eventually need to fill roughly 4,000 open positions.
Following a long day of meetings, Trump’s motorcade slipped away from reporters. —