Analysis on Trump's New Immigration Enforcement Proposals Following DC Shooting

Welcome back. I'm Tiffany Meyer. In the aftermath of the deadly shooting in DC, President Trump announcing new anti-immigration policy proposals on Friday. The State Department ordered a hold on issuing visas to Afghan passport holders. And the US has paused all asylum applications. The USCIS also announced a review of applicants from 19 high-risk countries, including Afghanistan, Iran, and Cuba. Joining us to unpack all of this is Jessica Vaughn, director of policy studies at the Center for Immigration Studies. Jessica, thank you so much for joining us. Great to have you. Now, President Trump vowing in a long truth post in part to remove those deemed not a net asset to the United States or incapable of loving the country, adding only reverse migration can fully cure this situation. First, how would that work in practice? Well, um, what the president is talking about is a strategically targeted review of certain types of categories of people who were allowed to enter the country under the Biden administration under what we know were very lenient vetting standards. And it's targeted um toward first of all people from Afghanistan who were evacuated in a in a very chaotic way. Um it's also people who were granted asylum because there are concerns that um some of those approvals um perhaps were not done correctly. Uh that not enough time was taken to make sure that they qualified and that they were not a risk. and also to um to examine more thoroughly applicants from about 19 countries that are deemed to be of potentially more risk than other countries uh because of conditions in those countries, connections to terrorism, and frankly problems that we have had recently from the very large increase in immigration that occurred under the Biden administration. And expanding on that, along with the enhanced screening and the pause in asylum cases, how big of a policy shift would this be if it is all implemented? Well, it's a dramatic shift from the policies of the Biden administration, but what the Trump administration is doing is really applying the law and trying to meet the increased challenge that we have now from threats around the world and to mitigate um the problems that were created under the overly lenient policies of the Biden administration in which we saw saw historic increases in illegal immigration. I mean, there were more than 8 million people who were allowed to enter the country who came in illegally or were admitted uh even though they did not qualify for legal immigration. So that's, you know, and they were not really thoroughly vetted as we're finding out unfortunately now um particularly from Afghanistan. So this is really a um a correction that is being implemented. It's it's um it's it's really a very prudent change in policy from before, but it's really nothing new for the Trump administration. >> And Jessica, in terms of the Afghan pause and vetting, some advocacy groups are now raising concerns that Lacon Wall is painting all Afghans in a negative light, pointing to the help many Afghans provided in the war against terror. What is your response to that? Well, look, uh, there have been some very serious problems that have been uncovered by both congressional and, uh, government investigations into Operation Allies. Welcome. um because of uh the um discovery that the Biden administration chose to not do all of the background checks on people that would be typical uh under a refugee program or under the special immigrant visa program. And um at one point they had found almost 7,000 people who ha had derogatory information. and they're finding this out after they've been allowed to enter the United States. And so, um, you know, we and we've seen so many incidents from people who came in under the Afghan evacuation who've been causing problems, either terrorist plots or criminal problems or other sorts of problems that, you know, we need to deal with. We cannot just um sweep this under the rug. It It's too important to keep Americans safe. We've got to address and re-evaluate all of these cases. >> And really quickly on that, given that these people are already in the country, how hard will it be to vet all of them now? >> Well, it's not easy. Um, but since they've been living here, we we can examine what they've been doing since they got here. Um we are not really going to be able to do much of you know find out much about what they were doing in Afghanistan but um at least we will be taking more time to see how things have developed since they arrived here and many of the people will probably pass this vetting but uh some of them will not. I think the lesson here is that certain populations in the world are higher risk than others and we need to adjust our systems to account for that. We cannot just think that we can wave people in by tens of thousands you know in a very hurried manner uh from a place that was at war with many people um you know expressing hatred for our country. We can't expect that, you know, we can do that without certain problems happening. >> And zooming out a bit here, President Trump has been calling for tougher immigration enforcement since inauguration day, but he's also voiced support for, say, H-1B visas. So, how do you see all of this playing out? >> Well, the president has expressed support for skilled immigration. These are people who have been identified by employers who that you know have skills that they want to have uh available to them in this country for on a temporary basis and if they work out then they can potentially be on a path to citizenship. But um this doesn't affect the need to do proper vetting. I'm I'm sure the president would agree that you know we have to vet all applicants. We have to do a better job of it and we cannot simply um wave in very large numbers of people. And there are concerns about labor market impacts as well as national security risks of of huge immigration programs. We can do a better job at making sure these visa programs are serving our national interest and not harming Americans. I think the president recognizes that. He wants to show that he is not against immigration, but it has to be immigration that benefits our country. >> A lot at stake for sure here. Jessica Vaughn, thank you so much for joining us. >> Thank you.