NY attacker should be put to death: Trump
President to terminate US green card lottery
— U.S. President Donald Trump called Wednesday for the man charged with carrying out a New York City truck rampage that killed eight people to be put to death.
“NYC terrorist was happy as he asked to hang ISIS flag in his hospital room. He killed 8 people, badly injured 12. SHOULD GET DEATH PENALTY!” Trump wrote on Twitter, referring to the Islamic State jihadist group.
The president had earlier said he would consider sending Saipov to Guantanamo Bay, the U.S. military detention center in Cuba that has been used to indefinitely hold suspected foreign jihadists, a practice that has drawn repeated criticism from rights groups.
Trump said that he would end the popular U.S. green card lottery as police said a radicalized Uzbek man staged the deadly truck ramming in New York after entering the country under the program.
The move could spell the end to the U.S. immigration hopes of millions of people around the world who have tried to win U.S. residence permits through the program since it was created 27 years ago.
“I am starting the process of terminating the diversity lottery program,” Trump angrily told reporters.
“We have to do what’s right to protect our citizens,” he said. “We will get rid of this lottery program as soon as possible.”
The program awards U.S. permanent resident visas to around 50,000 applicants from around the world each year, opening the door as well for members of their broader families to follow them, so-called chain migration.
According to Trump, Sayfullo Saipov, identified by authorities as the man who plowed a rented truck into cyclists and pedestrians on a New York City bike path Tuesday, came to the country via the program in 2010.
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said he was “radicalized domestically” only after he came to the country, “when he started to become informed about ISIS and radical Islamic tactics.”
Trump’s threat would further close the doors to hopeful U.S. immigrants. He ran for election last year promising a crackdown on immigration, including building a wall on the Mexican border and banning Muslim immigrants.