An American killed 49 people, so Donald Trump wants to punish immigrants
In response to the horrific attack that claimed 49 lives at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, Donald Trump has a new(ish) policy proposal: ban immigration from countries with high levels of terrorism.
I could spend a few sentences explaining why that won’t work, but why should I when The Boston Globe‘s Matt Viser and The Washington Post‘s Philip Bump summed it up so well in these tweets:
Trump’s 40-minute non sequitur about immigration on Monday featured a number of low points for the candidate, including an odd moment when he told the crowd that the American-born killer was “born in Afghan.” According to a transcript of the prepared remarks provided to news outlets, this remark was not part of the original speech but an unscripted unfiltered moment from Trump.
The substance of the speech, to the extent there was any, was the return of Trump’s infamous Muslim ban, which he first proposed late last year and has distanced himself from somewhat since becoming the presumptive Republican nominee. Only now that policy has taken a new form: Trump told the crowd that he wanted to temporarily ban immigration from countries with “a history of terrorism.”
This new version of Trump’s plan is even more frightening than the last. That’s because unlike Trump’s initial Muslim ban, which many experts believe would be unconstitutional, this idea has already been proposed in the U.S. Senate.
Last year, former presidential candidate and Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul introduced an amendment that would have halted the granting of visas to anyone immigrating from 34 “high-risk countries.” All but one of those countries, North Korea, has a significant Muslim population. Ten current members of the U.S. Senate voted for the amendment, including former scion of the #NeverTrump movement Ted Cruz.
It’s unclear how Trump’s new proposal will be received by the rest of his party, but given that it was part of his prepared remarks, you can bet they won’t be completely surprised by it.