Former president Trump vowed at a rally Wednesday night to reinstate his administration’s travel ban on citizens from “terror-plagued countries” in the wake of Hamas’s brutal attack against Israel.
“On day one, we will restore the Trump travel ban on entry from terror-plagued countries and we will implement strict vetting, ideological screening for all new entrance into our country,” Trump said at Ted Hendricks Stadium in Hialeah, Florida, where he spoke to thousands of supporters, rather than appearing at the third GOP presidential primary debate. Trump has skipped all three debates, opting instead to counter program the events with interviews and rallies.
Trump announced a travel ban on immigration from several majority-Muslim countries in 2017, citing national-security concerns. Immediately after taking office, President Biden reversed the ban, which had been tied up in the courts.
The ban, which applied to Iran, Libya, Syria, Somalia and Yemen, also restricted visas for citizens from Venezuela and North Korea. Shortly after its implementation, the order was met with challenges in federal courts on the grounds that it illegally discriminated against Muslims, with plaintiffs citing Trump’s campaign promise to halt the inflow of all Muslims regardless of their country of origin.
Under Biden, the border has descended into a lawless free-for-all, Trump argued Wednesday night: “Anyone can come in!”
Addressing U.S. reaction to the invasion of Israel, Trump decried the “menacing mobs of Hamas supporters chanting their jihad slogans in the streets of our cities.”
In October, pro-Palestinian protesters congregated both around and inside the Cannon House Office Building, leading to an estimated 300 arrests. Last week, over 50 protesters were arrested while calling for a cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas war both inside and outside the offices of several prominent U.S. senators.
Most recently, on Sunday morning, pro-Palestinian protesters vandalized the gates of the White House with red paint and climbed the fence around the premises. Trump noted this incident and others, saying activists “desecrated statues and other great heroes of our country” and called “barbaric Hamas terrorists ‘martyrs.'”
“In times like these you can’t afford to have a president who wants to be politically correct,” Trump added. “We cannot have an administration that takes foreign policy advice from Ilhan Omar or Rashida Tlaib. AOC plus three, right.”
Representatives Omar, Tlaib, and other members of the progressive “Squad” have all demanded Israel agree to a cease-fire after the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust.
Trump also boasted his Middle East foreign policy wins from his first term, when he authorized the termination of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. His administration also killed Iranian major general Qasem Soleimani via drone strike.
“I completely obliterated the ISIS territorial caliphate,” he said. “They said it couldn’t be done.”
Trump did not, however, call to increase U.S. investment in Israel’s military defense or for any kind of escalation or confrontation with Iran, which funded the Hamas onslaught.
On the debate stage, former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley had fighting words for the Iranian regime, saying, “There would be no Hamas without Iran.”
“There would be no Hezbollah without Iran,” she said. “There would not be the Houthis without Iran. And there wouldn’t be Iranian militias in Syria and Iraq that are trying to hit our military men and women if it hadn’t been for Iran.” Haley also raised the growing “unholy alliance” between Iran, Russia, and China.
The former president however issued a strong warning to anti-Israel protesters in the U.S. who engage in violence.
“If you hate America, if you want to abolish Israel, if you sympathize with jihadists, then we don’t want you in our country and we are not going to let you come in to our country,” he said. “To all the resident aliens who joined in the pro-jihadist protests and became very violent and started destroying our Capitol, we put you on notice. Come 2025 we will find you and we will deport you.”