Donald Trump: U.S. needs immigration ‘extreme vetting’

Donald Trump is calling for “extreme vetting” of people looking to immigrate to or visit the United States, including an ideological screening test to weed out those who don’t “share our values and respect our people.”

Trump, delivering what his campaign billed as a major speech on terrorism on Monday in Youngstown, Ohio, said immigration would need to be stopped from “some of the most dangerous and volatile regions of the world that have a history of exporting terrorism,” but he did not specify what they were. He said he would ask the State Department and Department of Homeland Security to identify those places and stop processing visas for people looking to come to the United States from there.

“Those who do not believe in our Constitution, or who support bigotry and hatred, will not be admitted for immigration into the country,” Trump said. “Only those who we expect to flourish in our country — and to embrace a tolerant American society — should be issued immigrant visas.”

Trump has called for a temporary ban on all Muslims coming to the United States, and said in recent weeks he plans to expand it. He did not specifically name countries in his speech, but said that people who have “hostile attitudes” toward the United States must be blocked from coming, as well as those “who believe that sharia law should supplant American law.”

Trump laid out a broad, nonspecific plan for destroying the Islamic State, including joint and coalition military operations, cutting off funding, and shutting off access to the internet. “Military, cyber and financial warfare will all be essential in dismantling Islamic terrorism,” he said. “But we must use ideological warfare as well.”

To do that, Trump said his presidential administration would oppose “oppression of women, gays and people of different faiths” and would be allies with, and amplify the voices of, “moderate Muslim reformers in the Middle East.”

Trump sharply criticized the foreign policy of President Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton when she was secretary of state, decrying it as “nation-building” and claiming it led ISIS to flourish around the world. He said Clinton doesn’t have the judgment, temperament or “mental and physical stamina” to fight ISIS.

Trump said he believes the United States could find “common ground” with Russia because “they too have much at stake in the outcome in Syria, and have had their own battles with Islamic terrorism.”

Trump has praised Russian President Vladimir Putin and called last month on Moscow to find and release thousands of emails from Clinton. Later, he said it was a joke.

Meanwhile Monday, Rudy Giuliani, promoting Donald Trump’s national security plan, said that in the “eight years before Obama came along, we didn’t have any successful radical Islamic terrorist attack in the United States. They all started when Clinton and Obama got into office.”

That’s an apparent omission of the 9/11 terror attacks, during which Giuliani was New York City mayor and became the face of American grief and determination. His comments were lampooned on social media.

His spokesman Jake Menges said later that Giuliani was referring to a lack of major attacks during the remainder of President George W. Bush’s term. Earlier in his speech, Giuliani made several mentions of the 2001 attacks.

With AP