Trump Ties New York Terror Attack to Immigration Reforms
Fred Lucas /
President Donald Trump pointed to Monday morning’s terrorist attack in New York as a clear demonstration of the need for tougher immigration laws—specifically family-based immigration.
“Today’s terror suspect entered our country through extended-family chain migration, which is incompatible with national security,” Trump said in a formal statement issued late in the day by the White House, adding:
Congress must end chain migration. Congress must also act on my administration’s other proposals to enhance domestic security, including increasing the number of Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers, enhancing the arrest and detention authorities for immigration officers, and ending fraud and abuse in our immigration system. …
The terrible harm that this flawed system inflicts on America’s security and economy has long been clear. I am determined to improve our immigration system to put our country and our people first.
Authorities identified Akayed Ullah, 27, a Brooklyn resident originally from Bangladesh, as the man whose suicide bomb exploded prematurely at 7:20 a.m. near a Port Authority bus station in Manhattan, injuring three commuters as well as himself.
JUST IN: The suspected Port Authority bomber has been identified as 27-year-old Akayed Ullah, an ISIS-inspired Brooklyn man https://t.co/sI8z5juTQO pic.twitter.com/hZxcDfYeP2
— New York Post (@nypost) December 11, 2017
Ullah came to the United States seven years ago and was licensed to drive a cab in 2012 and 2015, the Associated Press reported. He lives with his parents in a Bangladeshi neighborhood of Brooklyn.
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“This attack underscores the need for Congress to work with the president on immigration reforms that enhance our national security and public safety,” White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters Monday afternoon, before the president’s statement came out.
“We must protect our borders, we must ensure that individuals entering our country are not coming to do harm to our people, and we must move to a merit-based system of immigration,” Sanders said.
Ullah, arrested by Port Authority police, was being treated for burns at Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan.
The suspect reportedly was inspired by Islamic State, the deadly army of Sunni Muslim terrorists based in Iraq and Syria.
Bangladesh isn’t on the list of countries subject to the Trump administration’s restrictions on travel, which currently includes North Korea, Venezuela, Chad, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Syria, and Yemen.
The Embassy of Bangladesh in Washington condemned the attack, AP reported.
Former White House national security strategist Sebastian Gorka tweeted this image:
This is apparently Ullah Akayed, the New York bomber's driver's license. pic.twitter.com/BgtnhwiuQl
— Sebastian Gorka DrG (@SebGorka) December 11, 2017
Trump strongly supports ending chain migration, which is what officials call allowing persons to become legal residents based on family ties with those already here legally.
The United States has resettled about 142,000 Bangladesh nationals since 2005 on the basis of familial ties. That number is bigger than the population of Dayton, Ohio, according to a press release from the White House.
“Any visa system can bring in immigrants who years later turn to terrorism,” David Inserra, a Heritage Foundation policy analyst on homeland security issues, told The Daily Signal.
Most of the terrorists on Heritage’s timeline of Islamist-inspired plots since 9/11 were born in the U.S., Inserra noted.
“Counting this attack, 89 of the 101 Islamist plots or attacks against the U.S. homeland were entirely or substantially homegrown,” he said in an email. “Instead, there are good economic reasons to move away from family-based immigration.”
Sanders said the attack in New York also shows the need to step up the fight against the Islamic State.
“This attack comes as our coalition continues to make great gains against ISIS,” Sanders said, adding:
Still, there is more work to be done on the ground in the shrinking ISIS-controlled areas, and the president’s plan to annihilate ISIS is moving forward. But we must also destroy the evil ideology that is behind ISIS and attacks like today’s. This ideology has no borders, but it must be eradicated.
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