Trump pushes even more ‘extreme vetting system’
President wants to scrap diversity visa program
Hours after terror struck New York City, President Trump ordered security officials to tighten the United States’ “already extreme vetting system” and demanded that Congress immediately scrap a visa program for underrepresented countries that let the suspect legally enter the U.S. in 2010.
Trump said the two-pronged response, outlined in tweets and public comments, is needed to ensure that no more would-be terrorists infiltrate the U.S. through the legal immigration system.
Both demands immediately drew concerns from critics Wednesday about the wisdom of Trump’s proposed changes, his ability to implement them and what exactly he wants.
Asked how Homeland Security would “step up” the vetting of foreigners, the Department of Homeland Security’s acting press secretary, Tyler Houlton, said, “You’ll have to contact the White House regarding the president’s tweet.”
White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders later said the vetting enhancements should include the collection of more biographic and biometric information from visa applicants, more information-sharing with foreign law enforcement agencies and an “overall heightened scrutiny and more thorough review procedure” for people trying to enter the country.
How that would be implemented is unclear.
The federal government has broad powers to limit or suspend immigration in the name of national security, as it did in the years following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
Since taking office, however, Trump has learned he does not have absolute power to limit immigration. His efforts to implement a travel ban against majority-Muslim countries have repeatedly been struck down, or limited, by federal judges.
Immigration experts called Trump’s proposals an overreaction that would do little to improve national security.
Alex Nowrasteh, an immigration policy analyst at the libertarian Cato Institute who has studied terrorist acts committed by immigrants, said it appeared that the New York City terror suspect – Sayfullo Saipov – became radicalized after he arrived in the U.S. from Uzbekistan through the diversity visa program seven years ago.
The diversity program, created by Congress in 1990, uses a lottery to admit up to 50,000 immigrants a year from countries whose citizens are less likely to obtain visas through the normal process. Most are from Africa, Asia and Eastern Europe.
Nowrasteh said Saipov’s alleged radicalization in the U.S. mirrored that of other domestic terrorists in recent years, including those responsible for the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing and the 2016 shooting massacre at an Orlando nightclub.
Of the 2.6 billion foreigners admitted into the U.S. from 2002 through 2016, fewer than 10 terrorists entered as a result of a vetting failure, according to a Cato report soon to be released.
One of those was Tashfeen Malik, who helped her U.S.-born husband kill 14 people in the San Bernardino, Calif., attack in 2015.
"The current immigration screening works very well at excluding immigrants who plan terrorism or who are radicalized before they get to the United States," Nowrasteh said. "Perfect screening, unless there is a time machine involved, would not have been able to stop (Saipov) from coming here."
The question now becomes what Trump can do.
One possibility is adding Uzbekistan to the list of countries covered by his frequently revised travel ban, which mainly targets Muslim nations. Natives of Uzbekistan, which is mostly Muslim, have carried out a string of terrorist attacks this year in Stockholm, Istanbul and St. Petersburg, Russia. And Uzbek fighters and radicals have surfaced fighting alongside the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.