https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-11-01/trump-says-new-york-suspect-s-visa-was-a-chuck-schumer-beauty?utm_content=politics&utm_campaign=socialflow-organic&utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&cmpid==socialflow-twitter-politics
President Donald Trump sought Wednesday to politicize the deadliest terror attack in New York City since 2001, blaming Democrats for the immigration policy that made it possible for a man accused of killing eight people with his truck to enter the country, and vowing to eliminate it.
“The terrorist came into our country through what is called the ‘Diversity Visa Lottery Program,’ a Chuck Schumer beauty,” Trump tweeted Wednesday morning, referring to the Senate Minority Leader. “We are fighting hard for Merit Based immigration, no more Democrat Lottery Systems. We must get MUCH tougher (and smarter).”
Trump, speaking later to reporters at the White House, said he is asking Congress to begin work on terminating the visa program in favor of one based on attributes such as job skills, education, age and English language proficiency. The president said he wants to “get rid of chain migration,” where immigrants petition for their relatives to enter the U.S.
The Department of Homeland Security confirmed the suspect in the attack received an immigrant visa under the diversity lottery program.
Trump also told reporters he “would certainly consider” sending the suspect out of the country to the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba where terror suspects captured outside the U.S. have been detained.
“We also have to come up with punishment that is far quicker and far greater than the punishment these animals are getting right now,” Trump said. “They’ll go through court for years, at the end -- who knows what happens.” He added, “What we have right now is a joke.”
Schumer, a Democrat from New York, was a co-sponsor of the House version of the Immigration Act of 1990 that among other things created the current visa lottery for “diversity immigrants” from countries that in recent prior decades had low rates of immigration to the U.S. It passed with bipartisan majorities in the House and Senate and was signed into law by President George H.W. Bush. About 55,000 visas are available each year through the program divided among six geographic regions.
The New York Democrat later sponsored another broad immigration plan that included among its provisions elimination of the program.
“President Trump, instead of politicizing and dividing America, which he always seems to do at times of national tragedy, should be bringing us together,” Schumer said Wednesday on the Senate floor.
The senator hit back, citing the president’s proposal to reduce New York City’s funding to combat attacks. “I am calling on President Trump to rescind his proposed cuts to this vital anti-terrorist funding immediately,” Schumer added.
Trump asked for a 25 percent cut in the $605 million current funding for the Urban Area Security Initiative, which helps high-risk cities such as New York to prevent, mitigate, respond to, and recover from acts of terrorism.
Trump’s tweet also drew ire from his own party. Senator Jeff Flake, the Arizona Republican who has publicly opposed Trump, responded to the president’s tweet, saying Schumer had been part of a 2013 effort in the Senate to end the visa program. Their bill was blocked by House Republicans.
“Actually, the Gang of 8, including @SenSchumer, did away with the Diversity Visa Program as part of broader reforms. I know, I was there,” Flake tweeted Wednesday morning.
Authorities identified the suspect in Tuesday’s attack as Sayfullo Saipov, a 29-year-old who came to the U.S. from Uzbekistan in 2010, on what Trump said was a diversity visa.
Trump’s nearly immediate political response to incident, in which eight people were killed Tuesday afternoon in the Tribeca neighborhood near the World Trade Center, fit his pattern of responding swiftly to apparent terror attacks with demands for tougher immigration laws and with blame for other politicians. It also offered an easy distraction from the flow of bad news for the White House coming from Special Counsel Robert Mueller centered around the indictment of former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and aide Rick Gates, as well as the announcement of a guilty plea by former Trump foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos.
"We are fighting hard for Merit Based immigration, no more Democrat Lottery Systems. We must get MUCH tougher (and smarter)," Trump wrote in a follow-up tweet, including the handle for "Fox and Friends," the morning show that he seemed to be watching while composing his messages.
Flake responded again, referencing the 2013 Senate effort: “In fact, had the Senate Gang of 8 bill passed the House, it would have ended the Visa Lottery Program AND increased merit based visas,” he tweeted.
Under the 2013 Senate plan, the number of H1-B visas for highly-skilled workers would have increased to 115,000 from 65,000.
Speaking to reporters at a news event later today, Schumer said he hoped Trump’s response won’t trigger a shift on immigration that could endanger a tentative pact between the president and Democratic leaders to pass the DREAM Act permitting undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. as children to remain in the country and bolster border security.
“Let us hope that Democrats and Republicans, regardless of what the president does, can come together and pass the bipartisan Dream Act,” he said, adding that he wants to see that happen by December 31.
The Trump White House was less eager to cast blame and suggest policy changes after the Oct. 1 mass shooting in Las Vegas, where 50 people were killed and hundreds were injured by a U.S.-born white man. For days after that incident, press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said it was too soon to talk about the politics or policy around the attack. "There’s a time and place for a political debate, but now is the time to unite as a country," she said on Oct. 2.
The visa program became a target of conservative media overnight, and Trump’s attack against Schumer echoed articles on such websites as Breitbart News and discussions Wednesday on Fox News.
Democrats criticized the president’s reaction.
“I think it’s kind of absurd in the hours after this terrible attack to be using it as a fulcrum for a debate that’s been going on in Congress for completely different reasons,” Representative Adam Schiff of California said on MSNBC on Wednesday. “I’ve never really heard this made as a security argument, and I think to use this tragedy in that way to push a different agenda is not what the president ought to be doing right now."
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, a potential 2020 Democratic presidential candidate, jabbed at Trump for politicizing the tragedy.
“I don’t think this is the time to get political,” he told MSNBC. “We had a policy, an immigration policy in place in the ’90s. It was a bipartisan policy. It was signed by a Republican president. There’s no doubt that we have to be smarter and have more intelligent but there’s also no doubt that this is not the time to play politics. This is not the time to foment hate. This is not the time to divide, because they all exacerbate the situation, right? This is the time to forge alliances with our allies.”
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