Trump looking to institute political tests for immigrants

YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio (AP) — Donald Trump is calling for “extreme vetting” of immigrants seeking admission to the United States. The policy would represent a significant shift in how the USA manages entry into the country.

And while the Republican presidential nominee argued against nation-building in a foreign policy speech Monday, he advocated for something even more grandiose: seizing Iraq’s oil wealth in the aftermath of the US invasion in 2003 that toppled Saddam Hussein. As he has previously, Trump proposed a closer relationship with Russian Federation in order to fight the Islamic State, telling the crowd, “Wouldn’t that be a good thing?” “We should only admit into this country those who share our values and respect our people”.

The popular businessman and GOP nominee spoke for 45 minutes about foreign policy.

The Trump campaign hopes his detailed speech will boost his flagging mainstream media poll figures in relation to the Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.

Clinton spent Monday campaigning with Vice President Joe Biden in Scranton, Pennsylvania, a working class area where both have family ties.

Although Trump’s remarks were stronger in tone than than those now heard from most American political leaders, he did not reveal many specific details of his plan to suggest how it would differ from the current administration’s.

Clinton has also rolled out a counter-terrorism plan, arguing that allies would be more willing to work with her administration than one led by Trump. He also insisted on a plain falsehood, that President Barack Obama “founded” the Islamic State group, multiple times. “We will defeat Islamic terrorism just like we’ve defeated every threat before”. President Barack Obama set the terms of US troop withdrawal from Iraq.

Obama, Clinton and top US officials have warned against using that kind of language to describe the conflict, arguing that it plays into militants’ hands. The message from Trump, however, was that Obama and Clinton have tiptoed around the threat because they are unwilling to use the phrase “radical Islamic terrorism” and are too afraid of offending those who would do harm to effectively target them. This test draws upon a Cold War-era ideological test to ensure that incoming immigrants believe in American principles rather than extreme ideologies established by some Muslim militants.

US immigration officials already vet potential immigrants, conducting background checks on those who seek to live or work in America.

“Those who support bigotry and hatred” will not be admitted to the United States, said Trump.

Previously, however, Trump had moved beyond his call to ban all foreign Muslims from the United States and proposed barring all individuals from counties “compromised by terrorism” – though he has not specified which countries match that criterion.

“We will also work closely with North Atlantic Treaty Organisation on this new mission”, said Trump, according to Reuters.

That proposal raised numerous questions that the campaign never clarified, including whether it would apply to citizens of countries like France, Israel, or Ireland, which have suffered recent and past attacks.

The foreign policy speech is a complement to the economy speech that Trump gave last week, aides said, describing them as twin pillars of the candidate’s policy agenda.

While his campaign staff and surrogates have sought to describe the ban on individuals from terror states as a rollback of Trump’s blanket ban on Muslim immigration, Trump recently characterized it on NBC’s “Meet the Press” as an “expansion” and has yet to refute his original proposal.