ImmigrationProf Blog

Monday, August 15, 2016

Trump looking to institute political tests for immigrants, Calls for "Extreme Vetting"

AP reports that Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump in a speech to be delivered today in Ohio will argue that any country that wants to work with the U.S. to defeat "radical Islamic terrorism" will be a U.S. ally, he is expected to say.

Trump also is also expected to outline a new immigration policy proposal under which the U.S. would stop issuing visas in any case where it cannot perform adequate screenings. It will be the latest version of a policy that began with Trump's call to temporarily bar foreign Muslims from entering the country. Trump is expected to describe the need to temporarily suspend visa issuances to geographic regions with a history of exporting terrorism and where adequate checks and background vetting cannot occur.

Trump is also expected to propose creating a new, ideological test for admission to the country that would assess a candidate's stances on issues like religious freedom, gender equality and gay rights. Through questionnaires, searching social media, interviewing friends and family or other means, applicants would be vetted to see whether they support American values like tolerance and pluralism.

UPDATE (AUGUST 16): Trump has called for "extreme vetting" and a return to the ideological screening test employed at the height of the Cold War. He seems to want to exclude all persons with anti-American attitudes:

Trump's proposal has provoked commentary, including The Hill, BBC, Washington Post, and the New York Times. For a look at the history of ideological exclusion (and the "war on ideas), which for the most part was eliminated from the U.S. immigration laws in 1990, see this ACLU report and here. In addition to a revival of "Operation Wetback," Mr. Trump seems to want to return to the immigration methods of the 1950s in excluding "communists" and other political subversives. Some of the major decisions of that era that might be used to justify ideological exclusion, such as Knauff (1950) and Mezei (1954), remain "good law."