Key supporter of U.S. values test says Trump's plan won't stop terrorism

WASHINGTON – Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump claimed this week that an ideology test on American values for immigrants could somehow help deter terrorism in the U.S., but even a group he cites as supportive of the idea says it wouldn’t have that effect. 

“Of course they (potential terrorists) will lie,” said Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Immigration Studies, which supports such a test of fealty to American values, but not as a means to reduce terrorism. “This is about regular folks that believe things that are contrary to the values of our society. … This isn’t about keeping terrorists out. We have other things for that.”

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Krikorian’s comments to the Free Press on Tuesday came as Trump’s latest proposal for a revamped immigration policy — which began late last year with Trump initially calling for halting all Muslim immigration into the U.S. — came under fire from critics who, unlike Krikorian, see such an ideology test as largely unworkable and potentially unconstitutional.

In remarks made Monday in Youngstown, Ohio, Trump outlined a series of foreign policy steps, including suspending immigration from “regions of the world that have a history of exporting terrorism” until a new system of what he called “extreme vetting” is put into place. While few details were given, he said it would include a process to “screen out any who have hostile attitudes towards our country or its principles.”

“In the Cold War, we had an ideological screening test. The time is overdue to develop a new screening test for the threats we face today,” said Trump, who not only called for screening out terrorists — which is already done under U.S. refugee and immigration policy — but for excluding anyone who does not proclaim support for American values or “who support(s) bigotry and hatred.”

Such a policy — if it could be implemented — would represent a huge change, however. While immigrants from countries with a history of violence and terrorism already go through a rigorous vetting process, past and current exclusionary rules have focused on a person’s actions — such as whether he or she was a Communist, a member of the Nazi Party, or engaged in previous terrorist activity.

Trump’s proposal would go much further, said immigration experts, and could have a deeply divisive impact in areas like Dearborn, where American Muslims could feel targeted — and separated from their families — because of their beliefs, even though any immigrant has to follow the law and express his or her support for the U.S. Constitution before becoming a citizen. 

Some experts said Trump's proposal seemed more aimed at putting in place a system that could be so unwieldy it would virtually halt immigration, especially from areas of the world seen as dangerous.

“I don’t think it would be every effective in stopping terrorism at all, and I think ultimately what it’s trying to do is significantly reduce the numbers (of immigrants and refugees) coming from certain parts of the world,” said Doris Meissner, former commissioner of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service and a senior fellow at the Migration Policy Institute in Washington, who noted there already are strict rules regarding immigrants from many Middle Eastern nations including Syria, Yemen and others.

As for families in areas of southeastern Michigan looking to help Arab-American relatives immigrate or refugees resettle in the state, Trump’s policy — at least in the short-term — could all but end their chances. Such a halt could become a longer-term issue, too, if the plan was slow to move forward and Trump — who would have wide powers as president to exclude immigrants from specific countries — decided to forgo it.

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Some experts said drawing up a set of questions to vet refugees' adherence to American principles would be difficult, if not impossible, given the wide disagreement about what some of those principles mean in practice. And putting in place a bureaucracy to ask, vet and react to those tests could be near impossible, given funding constraints.

“It’s absurd, it’s completely unworkable,” said David Leopold, a top immigration lawyer in the Cleveland area, noting that, according to Trump’s speech, he also wants to target the children of immigrants, like the American-born citizens involved in shootings in San Bernardino, Calif., and Orlando. “As the son of a refugee, does this mean if I have an opinion I’m in danger of losing my citizenship?”

“It adds to the disenfranchisement that people are already dealing with,” said Suehaila Amen, an officer with Leaders Advancing and Helping Communities, a group that supports refugees resettling in southeast Michigan, especially in and around Dearborn. “It puts refugees trying to get through the trauma of war to comprehend why a nation that is all about opportunity and freedom is seeking to exclude them.”

Meanwhile, Trump has specifically called for slowing the flow of refugees from war-torn Syria and Iraq, saying a crisis of Muslim immigrants faces Europe and the U.S. In a speech that included several inaccuracies — including his repeated claim that he opposed the Iraq War “from the beginning” — Trump said his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, would permit 620,000 refugees into the U.S., though she has never made such a claim. Clinton, however, did propose allowing 65,000 Syrian refugees this year, compared with the 10,000 called for by the Obama administration.

With less than two months to go in the federal fiscal year, the administration is closing in on its goal, with nearly 9,000 Syrians resettled in the U.S. — compared with more than 4 million displaced by civil war in the Middle East and hundreds of thousands resettled in Europe. Michigan leads American states in Syrian resettlements this year with 937.

Trump has repeatedly suggested that those resettlements pose a danger to the U.S. and that potential terrorists could try to infiltrate the country. But the U.S. resettlement process — which takes 18 months to two years to complete — is rigorous and already, to the mind of many, constitutes “extreme vetting,” even though some law enforcement officials have noted that tracking background records where they may not exist — such as in Syria — is difficult, if not impossible.

Left unsaid in Trump’s speech, however, was whether nations compromised by terrorism such as France, Belgium and Germany would be included in the immigration ban — all have had citizens implicated in terrorist plots — and what that might mean for commerce. Terrorism also was implicated in a 2014 attack in Ottawa,  Canada — the largest trading partner of  the U.S. with much cross-border trade with Michigan.

Trump also cited — in footnotes to his speech — a Senate report indicating that of 580 people convicted of terrorism in the U.S. since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, 380 or more were born overseas. This was cited as proof that a new screening procedure is needed. But the specifics of that report have never been vetted, and a cursory look at the Justice Department convictions it was based on shows less than a third of those came on charges in the last eight years and some predate 9/11.

For his part, Krikorian, at the Center for Immigration Studies, defended the ideological test as a move that would further ensure that people being let into the country are here to support its values. He said that, from what he heard, Trump didn’t intend it to be a shield against terrorism, considering that a potential terrorist probably wouldn’t hesitate to lie about his or her beliefs to accomplish a mission. 

That interpretation, however, may be a stretch, given that Trump spoke of the “common principle” he’d apply in such a test, while directly linking his new policy to what he called the “common thread linking the major Islamic terrorist attacks that have occurred recently on our soil” to “immigrants or the children of immigrants.”

Krikorian said there is still value to having immigrants — wherever they are from and whatever religion they espouse — take a test in which they pledge their support of American values of free speech, freedom of religion and the rights enshrined in the Constitution. He suggests, while it may do little to combat terrorism, it protects the nation by cutting down on those who may advocate — and encourage others to act on — intolerant views, either through the legal process or otherwise. The Center for Immigration Studies often cites research calling for a reduction in immigration into the U.S.

“How many people that reject some of the basic tenets of our government can we let in without weakening those societal values?” he asked. “I don’t want to find out."

Contact Todd Spangler: 703-854-8947 or at tspangler@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter at @tsspangler.